


To Ride in A Pack

by Gazyrlezon



Series: The Bloody Wolf [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Butterfly Effect, Canon - Book, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8187233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: He is probably thinking he shouldn’t let m’lady go stealing food. Arya just knew he was going to be stupid now.With a sigh, she turned back towards him.  Why is it always me who has to stop him from getting killed?Continuation of To Befriend The Wolf. You might want to read it first, but it should be perfectly possible to start with this one as well.





	1. Catelyn

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, still only book canon, the show is still as bad as it was a few months ago (in fact, now that I've got my own tumblr blog, I [wrote some bits](https://gazyrlezon.tumblr.com/post/150869642447/why-game-of-thrones-is-a-show-of-surreal-humour) about it).
> 
> Oh, and no, I haven't somehow magically transformed into GRRM during these last few weeks, meaning these still aren't my characters, settings, etc.

When they told Catelyn that her daughter was outside, she feared that she had finally lost her mind to grief. Surely she must be dreaming, or else had misunderstood the steward’s words. But Utherydes Wayn, old as he was, gave her a nod and repeated what Catelyn had just heard, so she found herself leaving her father’s bedside, racing down the spiral staircase into the yard as fast as her feet would carry her. 

Outside, with the sun just past midday casting sharp shadows on the ground, it seemed that nothing at all had changed; it was the same yard, the same walls, the same heads being displayed above them, and yet everything was different. 

There was her daughter standing right in its middle. 

_Arya!_

For a moment she couldn’t believe; how was it possible for Arya to stand just past the main gate of her grandfather’s castle, when by all accounts she was Joffrey’s hostage, or dead? But those thoughts were pushed away as Arya broke into a run, a run towards her. 

“Mother”, was all she said, and then she’d already launched herself into Catelyn’s arms. 

And Catelyn hugged daughter fiercely, held her closer than she ever had before. 

_She’s here_ , was all she could think, _She’s really here._

They must have stood like this for a long time, but it felt like no time at all. Certainly much too short to make up for all the time of uncertainty, for all the fear, for all the _loss_. 

Only then did she let her daughter go, to get a more proper look at her. 

She was thin. Shockingly so. 

_If she was as skinny as a stick before, then what is she now? A needle?_

And covered with bruises, in an alarming variety of sizes and colors. 

With all that, Catelyn nearly did not notice her short, butchered hair, the rags that had presumably once been here clothes, her missing shoes or the sword fastened to her waist. 

_That doesn’t matter. Not now. Not when I just got her back._

And after seeing her face, thin and weak and starved, she could not help but press Arya to her again, and stay like this some more, wishing it could last forever, the happiness she felt with her daughter pressed to her chest for the first time in months. 

It was only later when should looked up again, to see a giant wolf, larger even Grey Wind had been the last time she’d seen him, the surprisingly expensive-looking horse beside it and the boy, his every movement screaming discomfort and uncertainty. He turned away quickly once he noticed her gaze, but she’d already seen his face, if only for half a heartbeat. And suddenly she was in that lavish tent again with a shadow creeping on the floor, a murderous knife in its hand. 

_No_ , she thought, _That can’t be, I’ve seen him stabbed just a few days ago_ _…_

And yet here he stood. 

Arya must have noticed that she looked somewhere else, for she drew out of the hug and looked up to her. 

“Mother?”, she asked her, following Catelyn’s eyes, and when she saw them glued to the boy she added: “Why are you staring at him? That’s just Gendry. I’ve met him on the road. He’s my – ” she stopped there for just a moment, as if considering her choice of words, “He’s a friend of mine.” 

_Gendry_ , she thought, _Yes, right. I just mistook him._ He obviously was to young to be Renly, and whatever else she’d thought of Renly and his arrogance, he’d have never let himself be caught in clothes such as the ones this boy wore. Still … the similarities could not be denied. His hair might be messy, but it was of the same ink-black, and should he ever comb it out she doubted that there would be a visible difference. His cheekbones and the shape of his face might be slightly different, but eyes with the same piercing blue colour stared out of it. Some part of her wondered how Brienne might react once she saw him. The girl might have pledged her sword to Catelyn, but it was obvious to anyone who looked at her – not that many did – that she would never forget Renly. 

For a moment she thought of her wedding, then, where she’d married a stranger she’d never seen before in her life, who’d borne such a resemblance to his brother … 

Arya still stared at her, and by now the boy – Gendry – had noticed as well and looked right back at Catelyn, it seemed. 

_No_ , she observed, _He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Arya._

It took her a moment to return to the present, to get the thoughts of shadows and strange powers out of her mind. 

“Pardon my confusion”, she said, turning to her daughter again, “You really should eat something, Arya, you look thinner than I have ever seen you.” 

Catelyn had always hoped that maybe one day they could’ve visited Riverrun, all of them, and she’d have shown her children where she had grown up. But that was not meant to be, so instead, Arya got her first glimpse of Riverrun’s great hall starved from her flight, while her mother quickly instructed Utherydes Wayn – who had followed her down into the yard – to get as to eat for Arya as the kitchens were able to provide on such a short notice. 

Upon entering Arya seemed unsure, just for a moment, then she turned round, gestured to the boy – Gendry, Catelyn reminded herself – to follow her inside. If he’d been unsure of himself before, than she truly did not know how to describe his stance now. In a way, she supposed he resembled a man waiting to attend his own trial for murder, knowing he will probably either go to the Wall or die. 

For once disregarding every rule of court her Septa had once taught her she placed them both at the high table, and then hoped that food would arrive rich and plentiful, and, above all, _quickly_. 

None of them spoke a word while waiting; it would have been polite, but this time she really couldn’t fault Arya for ignoring it, and she doubted the boy knew what was considered polite at a high table. _What an odd sight we must make, a young lady without_ _shoes, dressed as a peasant’s boy together with her lowborn friend sitting at the high table of_ _mighty Lord Tully’s castle._

Especially the boy. _I wonder if Maester Vyman will put down a record of this day, saying_ _it was the first for a commoner to ever sit on Riverrun’s dais._ Though with his look, she didn’t doubt he was the bastard of one Baratheon or other, and given Renly’s age and Stannis’s sternness it was clear he must be Robert’s. She wondered how he had found his way here. Men acted strange about their bastards, she had found; her own Ned would never tell her who this woman was, this shadow that lay between them, not even if she was even still alive. And only a few days ago one of Lord Bolton’s ravens had arrived, carrying a letter saying that he was sure Harrenhal would be Robb’s within the week, and that he hoped it would serve as proof of his loyalty after what his own bastard had done in the North, where Ser Rodrick Cassel had put him to death. _A fate he no doubt deserved_ , had said the letter. 

With Gendry here, and apparently on his way to join the Night’s Watch, she supposed King Robert hadn’t been as generous to his bastards as some other men were. She wondered what he might have done to warrant a trip to the Wall, and whether or not Arya knew. Right now, he looked more shy than anything, not only not having spoken a single word since he stepped inside the courtyard, but also desperately trying not to stand out, which achieved the exact opposite result – if anything, his squirming served to make him noticeable. The bull’s head helmet that he’d carried with him before now lay on the floor next to him, while he himself did not look too different from Arya, being garbed in similarly ruined clothes, carrying a sword – she’d need to do something about that, later, both with him and Arya. Openly carrying a sword inside the walls of Riverrun would not do either of them any good, if for different reasons – although he, at least, still wore shoes. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t long until the food was brought; bread with cheese and bacon, some boiled eggs. Overall, nothing complicated, or warm, just what could be brought at a moment’s notice, though Arya didn’t seem to mind. After shoving half a loaf of bread into her mouth – if anything, her regards for table manners had evidently worsened, not that Catelyn was surprised or minded it right now – she stopped just long enough to jokingly tell her friend that yes, he could eat the food, it wasn’t poisoned, but then continued as if she was a hungry direwolf in winter. 

_Not that wrong a description, I suppose._

And while Gendry still looked doubtful, eventually he grabbed a bit of it, too, and to Catelyn’s amazement he ate it more politely than her own daughter did. But then again, in all likelihood he feared to be thrown out of the castle should he do anything wrong, and Catelyn wasn’t even sure if that was untrue. It was her brother’s decision, after all, though she thought the boy hardly had anything to fear. Already, there were all kinds of people in this castle; half the commoners of the Riverlands seemed to have poured through those fish-adorned gates, and though the boy probably was from Kng’s Landing and not her brother’s own lands, it would be very unlike him to throw someone out, especially if his niece requested otherwise. 

To tell the truth, he probably had nothing at all to fear. 

_If only the same could be said of me._

Edmure had shown her his plans for battle almost the moment she had returned with Brienne, and while he and his bannermen all agreed on their own ingenuity, Catelyn herself could not help but fear for her sweet little brother who’d let the smallfolk in his castle, the way she already had to fear for Sansa and her sons. 

_Foolish woman_ , she told herself, _you should be praising the Seven for returning your_ _daughter, not sitting here, thinking of battles yet to be fought._

She dearly hoped her fears did not show on her face, so Arya might not be scared more than she already was. No matter how exactly she had made her way to Riverrun, Catelyn doubted it had been a happy voyage. While returning after Renly had been murdered by that abomination she herself had been forced to travel closer to the fighting that she would have wished, but she’d had Hallis Mollen and his guards around her. To be there without them, virtually unprotected … 

No, she wouldn’t share her fears with Arya. She deserved comfort now, not more worries. 

When her worst hunger was stilled, her daughter looked up for a moment, asked “Where’s Robb?”, before immediately returned to her food. 

“He’s in the west, raiding Lord Tywin’s lands. The Greatjon has plundered the mines at Castamere, and Robb himself has taken Ashemark and is marching on to the Craig, after winning a great victory at Oxcross, defeating an entire host.” 

She continued to tell all the lovely little stories Martyn Rivers and his scouts had told her, hoping her daughter would find them more comforting than she herself had. 

But “Well, that’s good, I suppose” was all she said, and Catelyn feared that her daughter had seen right through her feeble attempts to put her at ease. 

_She won’t calm until Robb has returned, victorious, from the battlefield._

Again, Catelyn wondered what had happened to her daughter. Not even a year ago, Robb, and Jon Snow, as well, had been Arya’s heroes and she would’ve never believed that anyone could harm them – and yet now the look on her face together with the low, depressing voice told her an entirely different story. 

_Oh Ned, why did I persuade you to go with your King?_

If only they had all remained at Winterfell, none of this would have ever happened; or if, at the very least, her Ned would have gone to King’s Landing alone, so her daughters would be safe at home. What was it that Arya had experienced out there, that had changed her so? 

She almost feared to ask. Yet what kind of mother would she be, when she could not bear to hear what her daughter had been forced to live? 

“So”, she finally started, after seemingly endless moments spent with searching for the right words, “How did you get out of King’s Landing? I don’t suppose it was the Imp who let you go, or Petyr?” She might not be sure anymore on whose side he was on, but Catelyn allowed herself the spot of hope. 

“No they didn’t”, Arya exclaimed, as if her mother had just insulted her. 

“Then who?” _Surely not Cersei._ For a moment she entertained the thought of Lord Varys; he was just as plausible as any other, she supposed, and with him no one ever knew what his true ends were. 

“Out the Red Keep, I myself. Then, out of King’s Landing, Yoren.” 

_Yoren?_ She vaguely remembered having heard that name before, somewhere, though she couldn’t quite place it. 

“He chopped my hair of, told the guards I was a boy on the way to the Night’s watch and got me out with the other recruits. We went north. He wanted to bring me back to Winterfell.” 

Her voice had assumed a wistful tone now, as if she fondly remembered being safe, though Catelyn shuddered to think of what else she might have encountered that she thought of travelling with criminals as _safe_. She hid her troubles, much as she could. But at least she could place Yoren, now, he’d been one of the black brothers who’d come down south with the Imp. 

“I met Gendry there. He was the only one who’d help me, and I helped him, a bit. I caught a rabbit once, I shared it with him … Anyways, Yoren was killed by Ser Amory Lorch, near the Gods Eye. He burned the holdfast we’d slept in and killed most of the others, too. A few escaped with us, though. One of them died a short time after, and the rest abandoned us, sooner or later.” 

Catelyn wondered what was worse, the terrors she was describing or the sound of the voice she was using; a voice one might use to tell of a dream, of something that had not been real at all. 

_It’s something she doesn’t want to be real_ , Catelyn sensed. 

“After that we just walked through the woods. Since Winterfell was to far and we’d heard that Robb had come south, I figured he might be here. Nymeria kept us save, after she found me again. And provided us with bits of meat to eat, from whatever her pack had left. She scared the horse a bit, though.” There was a half-smile on her face, the wistful smile of someone who didn’t smile at all, in truth. In a way, it would’ve been more bearable if she’d shouted, or even cried. But then Arya had always tried not to cry when she could avoid it. 

With all that on her mind, it took her half a moment to truly understand what she had heard, that Arya had escaped with the Night’s watch, only to then see the man who had promised to protect her slaughtered, forcing her to walk almost all the way to Riverrun – which was a long way, even with a horse. All the same, she sent a silent thank to the Seven for this Yoren and cursed Lord Tywin’s mad dogs for killing him. But there were more questions, of course. There always were, with Arya. 

_Who is this boy there, and why was he there? And -_

“Did you say you escaped the Red Keep _yourself_?” 

“Yes. Well, Syrio - Syrio helped me. When they came to take me he noticed that Father would never have sent Lannister men to fetch me. He held them back, too, killed three guardsmen and fought Ser Meryn with only a wooden sword. He told me to run. I didn’t want to leave him, but he _told_ me to. He must be dead now, I think. Father hired him for me, after he’d found Needle – my sword. After that I ran down into the dungeons, through the room with the dragon skulls and outside. I’d been there, before, so I knew there was a way out. After that I lived on the streets – Syrio had taught me how to hunt cats, and pigeons are easy once you know cats. Anyways, I found the boat that Father had arranged for, but I didn’t know the men there, so I stayed away. Still, I looked every day if maybe there was something to get me out, the gates were closed, but then … ” 

“Then?”, Catelyn asked, while she suspected she already knew – and dreaded – the answer. 

“Then they killed him. One day, the bells were ringing, and someone told me what it meant. I was there.”, she said, her voice impossibly low before it faded out altogether. Then she spoke up again, calmer than she’d ever heard her: “Yoren found me there.” 

_By all Seven, why did she have to see it?_ It had been bad enough for Robb and her, just reading that letter carrying dreadful news, knowing Ned was gone. Catelyn could not begin to imagine how it might have been to see the blade cutting her husband’s head from his shoulders. And Arya was so young. She tried to remember what she had done at that age, and all that came back was playing with Lysa and Petyr, covered in mud. If she had lost her own father at that age … She did not know what she would have done. _Now I’m sitting here, more than thrice her age, and complain_ _how hard it is to loose a father while I sit by his bedside all the time, while my_ _daughter has gone through all this already, and in a much more brutal fashion than I_ _will._

Catelyn placed her arm around her, and drew her as close as was possible could on the high, carved chairs of the high table. The boy, sitting across the table, reached across it, to place his hand on Arya’s shoulder, and to her surprise Arya didn’t push him away. 

“Arya?” both the boy and Catelyn asked her. 

“It’s all right.” she insisted, no matter how obvious the lie was, and neither of them drew away, though Gendry looked more than a bit uncomfortable about it. 

“No, really, it’s all right”, she repeated, pushing them away, “It’s just - I don’t know. I didn’t even see it, Yoren made me look away before - before Ser Ilyn - ” she stopped, just for a moment, and a single tear could be seen leaving her eyes, “But I saw the sword. Ice, it was _Ice_ they used, I saw it, saw it when Ser Ilyn held it high, before Yoren grabbed me. I tried to get through, through the crowd, to get to him. I had my sword, I wanted to help him, but I just … I just couldn’t even come _close_ to him. I couldn’t help him, all I could do was let him die there.” Catelyn drew her close again, this time lifting her from her own chair, placing her on her lap. Arya let her mother embrace her, comfort her, while all the time she wept on her shoulder. 

After a moment, she noticed the boy across the table staring at them, and had half a mind to send him away, but stopped herself short. _Arya asked for him to be in this hall, and_ _maybe he’s the only one she ever truly spoke to since Ned died._

For a fleeting second she thought of Brienne, and of how she would only confide in her. Maybe they were similar, after a fashion. 

“I couldn’t save him”, her daughter told her, as if apologizing for it, while she wept and wept, tears running down on her mother’s shoulder. 

“There was nothing you could do”, Catelyn told her, making her voice as firm as she could so she wouldn’t break in tears as well, “Nothing. You should not blame yourself.” 

_If there’s anyone to blame, then it’s me_ , she thought, _I was the one who convinced him of_ _accepting the position as Hand, and to go to King’s Landing. I thought I was doing my duty_ _at the time, but now I’m not so sure._

_Family, Duty, Honour_. The words of her house. But what was she supposed to do when her family was scattered, and didn’t know what her duty might be? 

After a sob, Arya replied: “Not blame myself. Yes”, she sobbed, “Father said that, too, when the Hound killed Mycah.” 

Slowly, her weeping ebbed, the sobs softening away, while she wiped the tears from her face. And only a moment later, there was no hint she had been crying left at all, and her daughter looked as strong as she had before. 

_It’s like a mask now_ , Catelyn realized, _she puts it on, so no one can see her_ _pain._

But before she could think on what to do about that, Arya was already speaking again. 

“Is Sansa still – ” 

“Yes”, Catelyn answered, before she could say the name of that, of that _place_ , before she could make her think of that monster that had Sansa in its grasp. She did enough of that already, and there truly was no need to talk of it, too. 

“Bran and Rickon?” 

“They’re safe at Winterfell.” 

Arya gave a sigh of relief. 

There was another question there, which she had left unspoken, she sensed. That of her bastard brother. Catelyn knew her daughter, and knew that she seldom spoke of him in her mother’s presence, only to then run off outside with him all day whenever she wasn’t looking. 

“Jon Snow is still at the Wall, safe”, she said, and mentioning that name was more than worth the smile it put on Arya’s lips. 

_Let her smile again_ , Catelyn prayed, _truly smile, not with the mask. Let her forget all this_ _ever happened, let it seem like a bad dream that means nothing ones the sun rises in the_ _morning._ Yet in her heart she knew that would never happen. In her heart, she knew her daughter had seen the horrors of this world, and would never become that careless, easy-laughing girl again. 

For a long time they just stayed there in front of the high table, and hoped that time itself would bend around them to make this moment last forever, but of course that would not happen. Someone had to tell her brother, someone had to send a raven to Ashemark, already the second today, though bearing much happier words than the first. Someone had to find her a room, and maybe even find a septa to continue her lessons. Yet for now, she wanted to do nothing else than embrace her daughter, and never let her go again. 

But of course, the world would not stay outside but came into the hall in the shape of Utherydes Wayn, her father’s steward, and reluctantly she sent him to the maester first and her brother second, so the two of them might have some more time together. 

Yet with the steward’s arrival, Arya, too, had come back from their sweet little dream, and after a while she began to ask whose heads were mounted at the gates, how many men were in the camps outside and who commanded them. Gently, Catelyn told her, trying and failing not to mention a word of the war, or of Robb in the field, risking his life again and again. 

Then Arya fell back into silence for a while, bit her lip, and finally asked, “Why are all these men here? They should be somewhere else, fighting Lannisters, or protecting the land. Half of it is already burning, but there are still people out there. We’ve met one, an innkeep. He was nice. He gave us the horse you’ve seen outside, in exchange for Nymeria’s meat.” 

Catelyn wondered how often she could feel grateful to whatever god, whether old or new, had sent these wolves to her children. How often had they already saved their lives, and how many times were yet to come? 

But Arya’s question had pierced a wall inside her, and at last she told her bluntly what was happening. 

“Lord Tywin is moving west, towards Robb, Arya. Edmure wants to offer him battle at the Red Fork and through him back to Harrenhal, where Roose Bolton will be waiting.” _So_ _he might gain some glory for himself, and his men forget the disaster of his last battle,_ _and the siege of this very castle._ “They’re here to protect Robb. I spoke with him about his plans just an hour before you arrived.” _All I can do now is to pray, to_ _all the Seven for his plans to work._ Maybe she would pay the godswood a visit, too. 

Arya bit her lip again. “Could I see these plans?” 

_Those of the battles?_ Her first thought was _No, she just came back from war, she shouldn’t_ _think about it, not now. Give her a little rest, at least._ Yet on the other hand, Catelyn knew her daughter would think of it even more if she forbade it. Arya had always done what she wanted; Catelyn had no doubt she would search for even the tiniest hint to find out what was really going on. And that most likely she’d find some unsettling rumour or other that would only serve to worry her more, to make her more afraid than she already was. 

_I don’t have to point out how insecure I’m myself. All the bannermen think these plans to_ _be wonderful, so why shouldn’t she as well? Give her some hope._

Hope. Yes, Catelyn wished she could have more hope as well, with the host of fears in her mind. 

“I’ll show you. Later, first, we’ll have to find you some proper clothes.” 

Noticing her daughters look, she quickly added: “Or at least some without holes in them.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope I got Catelyn's voice right. While she isn't my favorite character by any means, she's certainly one of the most fleshed-out ones I've ever encountered, GRRM truly outdid himself with her. She's got so many aspects and motivations, I've probably lost more than half of them while attempting to juggle with all at once.
> 
> And of course, for all that Arya's been on the road, been starved and traumatized, she's still interested in battle plans, 'cause that's just part of who she is. I didn't find a way to nicely include Brienne in this chapter, and honestly, that's one of the few things where I really have no idea what I'm going to do. We've seen her reaction to Gendry in canon, but that was months, if not years after Renly was murdered, not … days (Catelyn herself is just back from her failed attempt at negotiations, that's been the first raven to Ashemark that day).


	2. Arya

Her first thought upon seeing the map had been of the dirty ground in the broken tower, back in Winterfell, where she’d so often played at strategy with Jon. Of course, this map was beautifully painted on parchment – it was, in fact, the largest piece of parchment that Arya had ever seen – and instead of little stones someone had placed little wooden figures on it, carved in the likeness of wolves and lions and stags. If not for her mother’s grave expression, she could’ve almost believed that someone had played a similar game here, her uncle maybe. 

Jon had told her that these figures existed, of course, but she’d never seen them – after she’d never found them anywhere she’d come to suspect Maester Luwin always had them locked away somewhere. Still, Jon had told her quite a lot about them and everything else he himself had been taught in his lessons, along with Robb. 

Now, Arya tried to remember it, all of it. It wasn’t that she hadn’t listened to Jon – more the opposite, most of it she’d thought terribly interesting – but then she’d never needed it, and there hadn’t been much cause to remember it, in the last few weeks. 

And it wasn’t like she’d had a lot of time to think since she’d arrived. Riverrun must be a nice castle, she supposed – and the Great Hall had been quite impressive, from what little she’d seen while wolving down whatever had been placed in front of her – but she’d been so busy, even after she’d dealt with her hunger, first with being stuffed into a bath, then Maester Vyman having a look at the scars and wounds she’d acquired in the last fortnight – scars she hadn’t really noticed before, to tell the truth – and getting new clothes to replace the rags she’d worn before. Over all that, she hadn’t really had a chance to look around her, much less to think about what Jon had taught her, back at Winterfell. 

Still, she remembered how basic strategy on a map worked, with all its wooden pieces. They’d discussed that often enough, in their endless arguments whether Daeron the Young Dragon or Nymeria of the Rhoynar had been better. Jon had always argued for Daeron, but she’d never understood what was supposedly so great about him; Nymeria had conquered Dorne, too, after all, and she hadn’t lost it again within a _week_. 

Of course her lady mother didn’t know about all that, which resulted in Arya now being giving an incredibly long-winded lecture about the subject. 

_The fish about Riverrun stands for the men we’ve seen outside, the lion at Harrenhal’s_ _probably Lord Tywin, the one in the Riverlands are his men, the wolves in the west Robb_ _and his men, and so on. Why does she think I can’t figure that out myself? It’s_ _obvious._

She didn’t say anything though, not after noticing the look on Gendry’s face. He’d likely never seen a map before – and she wasn’t sure how much he knew about sigils, either, so he could probably use the introduction, though Arya didn’t exactly think her mother did it for him. After all, it had been enough work getting her to allow Gendry in here already. 

To be sure, she wasn’t even certain if Gendry was in interested in the slightest, but otherwise he’d been all alone, and … they’d been together now for so long, just the two of them – and Hot Pie and Weasel, of course, but they didn’t really count, since they’d never really spoken with her – she wasn’t sure yet if she could stand to be separated from him for long. 

That was hard to admit, even to herself, so she quickly let her thoughts return to the map, and the little pieces on it. 

_Hopefully she’ll be true to her word and explain me all the plans as well, not just that a_ _fish means “Tully men”._

Although, now that she thought about it, the most surprising thing in that rooms wasn’t she herself, the map, or even that Gendry was there when he couldn’t even read, but that her _mother_ was there. 

Arya hadn’t even _suspected_ that her mother knew anything about strategy and battles. Why would she? Fighting and wars were _unladylike_ , as Septa Mordane liked to put it. Or rather, shout at her whenever she’d sneaked away from her lessons to watch her brothers’ training in the yard. 

_And all the while she knew as much about it as Jon, if not more._

Of course, there were some drawbacks, too. 

Arya had not minded to leave her old, worn rags behind, but she would have preferred something more practical than the gown they’d given her. But Lady Catelyn was nothing if not crafty with getting what she wanted, and after telling Arya she wouldn’t see the map in breeches, the gown was finally put on – if reluctantly. 

It wasn’t just that she didn’t like it. Now, every time she heard something louder than someone’s voice, she spun around to see what it was, and she constantly had to think of how hard it was to fight in a dress, or how hard to run, especially when it came to running _fast_. Arya felt like a cripple, unable to move as quickly as she would’ve liked. 

Then she always had to think of Bran, and that truly she didn’t have it so bad, she wasn’t on the road anymore, after all. 

_If I could just remember that no Lannister soldier is likely to come and jump at me_ _here._

At least she still had Needle, but only after she’d threatened to find some longsword if anyone would try to take it away. Now she even had a nice little scabbard for it – though not nearly as nice as the sword Jon had made her – though she suspected she’d been given it more to protect her dress than for her herself. 

She also had shoes. 

That had come a bit unexpected. Since the Gods Eye she hadn’t had any, and with time she almost forgot about them. Having her feet in them again felt somehow _weird_ , rubbing in unexpected places, the feeling almost entirely unfamiliar. 

She wondered why that was. Before acquiring Fatigue, she hadn’t ridden for more than a month and been fine. 

_I just hope someone thought to give her a place in the stables._

There hadn’t been time for her to check, not yet, anyways. 

Then, with her mother finally arriving at the more interesting aspects of her speech, she stopped thinking about any of it. The tales her mother had told her before, in the hall, had been nice enough, but in a way, she suspected, they were as real as some of Old Nan’s stories. 

That was something else Jon had told her, once. _Don’t listen to rumours. That’ll do more_ _harm than good, or so Maester Luwin says, anyways._

“That one’s the Greatjon, there at Castamere, plundering what Lord Tywin left of its mines. Robb’s on his way to the Crag, the seat of house Westerling.”, her mother said now, pointing to the two wolves in the west. 

Arya wondered if either Septa Mordane or Maester Luwin had ever mentioned a House Westerling in their lessons, and who exactly the Greatjon might be. She wondered for a moment whether Jon would know. 

“This one’s Lord Tywin, here.” She was pointing at the lion in the Riverlands, roughly south of Riverrun, Arya saw. Well, she’d already known where he was. _Right_ _inside my Uncle’s lands. No wonder he has all these knights here to throw him_ _out._

“Here is Lord Edmure and the men you’ve seen outside in the camps. He means to close the Red Fork and prevent Lord Tywin from crossing it.” 

Which would … “Wait, what? Lord Tywin is just running _out_ of his lands, and he means to keep him back _inside_? That’s stupid.” 

For a moment, her mother looked unsure, as if she wasn’t quite convinced of it herself. Then she said, in what wasn’t her most firm of voices: 

“He wants to protect your brother.” 

“Hasn’t Robb got his own army? And even if not, can Uncle Edmure win? Everyone seems to fear Lord Tywin for some reason, and -” 

She’d meant to say _I heard Riverrun might be under siege again soon_ , which was what the innkeep had said, before her mother cut her off. 

“his last battle ended in a disaster, yes.” 

“Oh”, Arya said, “I didn’t even know he ever fought in one. What happened?” 

“He offered battle to Jaime Lannister, was defeated and the castle was under siege when we arrived here. Robb defeated the Kingslayer, though - ” 

“And took him captive.” 

“Yes. After that, his men started to call him _the Young Wolf_.” 

Arya bit her lip. For just a moment, she was reminded of her arguing with Jon, about the Young Dragon. _I hope he’ll die old and happy and in Winterfell, not like Daeron did, in a_ _bed of scorpions_ , she thought, though she wouldn’t say it. 

“I _know_ that, mother, we’ve heard that on the road, even before Yoren was killed. Though we also heard that Robb can’t be killed, that he has an army of wolves, is feasting on Lannisters … All kinds of things, really.” 

_Don’t trust rumours_ , Jon said in her head. 

“Part of it doesn’t sound strange, though, does it?”, Gendry said now, for the first time raising his voice, “You said he had a wolf like you do, and yours has got quite a pack with it.” 

Her mother gave him a somewhat shocked look, as if she was about to say _how dare you_ _interrupt my daughter._

“Just, I thought the part with the army of wolves might be true, is all m’lady.” 

_Maybe he’s right. If Robb has a pack of wolves, too, maybe_ _…_ “I’m not sure”, she said, “We know they kill men. But I don’t believe they eat them, too. I mean, I heard the tales and all, but …” 

“We know they kill men? I’ve never seem them kill a man, have you?” 

_How is it he didn’t notice?_ “You’re stupid. Of course they kill men. What did you think, why we never met anyone after Nymeria came back?” Deciding to ignore her mother when she gave Arya a look as if she’d just admitted to eating menflesh herself, she went on “Anyway, they all say Robb’s quite good at making battle plans. He probably doesn’t need any rescuing.” 

“Maybe”, her mother allowed. 

“So one of the worst battle commander who ever lived wants to protect one of the best from getting killed?” _That doesn’t make any sense at all._

When her mother started to look doubtful, she added “I mean, Robb _must_ have known that Lord Tywin would come for him sooner or later, with him near Casterly Rock. What would Robb do if someone besieged Winterfell, if not the same? And if he needed Edmure to help him, he would have told him before or sent a message. But he didn’t, did he?” 

She remembered how she’d talked with Jon about this for hours, that one could not afford to loose his seat while at war. _When you loose your home, the men stop believing in you,_ _they stop fighting in you, and you’ll loose._ Most of the time, they’d ended their games with attacking the other’s home. 

“Not that I knew of, no. But a raven can get lost, a rider captured and questioned … Though I suppose he would send more than one of them, or more than one raven, so that at least one of them would come through.” 

“But then … It doesn’t make any sense at all. Robb _wants_ Lord Tywin to come back, he’s not stupid, he wouldn’t just do something an _not_ think ahead.” 

Robb had always been thinking ahead, she remembered. Once, when she’d asked him to spar with her, or maybe even teach her, he’d said – in a very genuine tone – that he would gladly do so but didn’t want to get her into trouble. And while she’d been angry with him for a week after that Arya couldn’t deny that Robb _did_ think about what he was doing. 

“You’re right, Arry. He set up a trap, and they’re just closing it before he’s inside.” 

_Arry? Why’s he calling me Arry?_ For a moment she looked at Gendry, confused, though she tried not to show it. 

“Yes. And Gendry, I think my mother knows that I’m a girl.” 

“What? Oh, right, er … forgive me, m’lady”, he said, the first time addressing her mother directly, then turning back to her,“So you think he shouldn’t close the River, Arya?” 

She thought about it. Maybe it wasn’t too bad a plan, even if Robb hadn’t thought of it … _If only Jon was here_ , she thought. Jon had always been better at their games, and she suspected that he would be better at this as well. 

But of course he wasn’t, and all Arya had now were memories of him. Still, she remembered all he’d told her, or near enough, every little war they’d fought. Once, when it had rained for days, they’d played through the whole of Aegon’s Conquest and Roberts Rebellion, and almost all the battles had turned out right. And once they’d been through with them they’d started again, only this time with little changes, with different decisions, had tried to guess if Brandon Snow could have really killed the dragons, and what would have happened if he truly had, or if Argallic the Arrogant had won against Orys Baratheon, if the Dornish hadn’t deserted their castles and offered battle. 

But this here was a game much more serious, and much more deadly. 

_What can I do?_ , she wondered desperately, _How do you plan a war?_

There was only one thing she could think of. She would just try every strategy and every possible outcome, and see which one was most likely to win. She’d done that, sometimes, with Jon, and with it, she’d seemed to be at least a _little_ more successful. 

“We’ll just try everything and see what might happen. So, if we close of the Red Fork - ” she moved the fish away from Riverrun and placed it on the river “ - we’ll either win against Lord Tywin, or he’ll loose. If we loose, it doesn’t gain us anything, but we’ve lost some men. If we win, he’ll loose a part of his army, and the rest will retreat to - to Harrenhal I think.” _Or south, to Kings Landing, or maybe even north, or somewhere else_ _entirely._ Even after one move, the possibilities started to add up and branch out, the way a tree had only one trunk but hundreds of leaves. _This is going to take some_ _time._

Luckily, her mother made it easier for her. 

“No, Arya. Edmure has commanded Roose Bolton to take Harrenhal. There aren’t much men there, Lord Bolton is certain Harrenhal will fall within the week”, she corrected Arya. 

Arya bit her lip. _Then where else?_ “So if he can’t go back, he could go north, but that wouldn’t gain him anything. There’s just another river there, and then the sea, or the Neck.” 

“Yes.” 

“Which means he’ll have to go south.” She moved Lord Tywin’s lion south until it reached the Blackwater, and noticed the rose there. 

“A rose. Who’s that?” 

“Tyrell, I’d think. Ser Loras has three roses as his sigil, or at least he wanted roses all over the armour he ordered at the forge.”, Gendry said. 

_Why does he know more sigils than I do?_ “And they fight for … whom? Renly? Stannis?” 

“Not Renly”, her mother told them, her voice as low as if she was attending some funeral, “Renly was murdered while I was there to treat with him. They … they might think it was Stannis who killed him, since he was preparing for battle against him shortly before Renly died.” 

Arya thought there was something her mother tried to hide from her. _They might think_ _mother killed him. What a stupid idea._ Still, lots of people had lots of stupid ideas, she’d found. 

“Which means they’ll either fight for Joffrey or just go home, or maybe even declare their own kingdom, like Robb did. But – ” _Never risk too much, Arya_ , she could hear Jon in her mind, laughing, after he’d won once again. “ – we shouldn’t assume we’re lucky.” 

Arya hoped she wouldn’t forget anything. _If we close of the Red Fork, Lord_ _Tywin will go south, maybe join with the Tyrells, and then_ _…_ Who else was down there? 

“Who are those stags down here? The one at Storm’s End, at Dragonstone and here in the sea?” 

_They can’t all be Joffrey’s, can they?_

“These are Stannis’ forces.” 

Relieved, Arya said: “He’s got quite a lot of them.” 

“Yes, and we think he’ll lay siege to King’s Landing soon.” 

“Where’s that, m’lady?”, Gendry suddenly interjected. One look from her mother, and he fell silent again, regret and something vaguely like shame on his face. 

“You can’t read?”, her mother asked him, incredulously. Only then did Arya remember it herself, wondering why she hadn’t thought of it before. _He must have remembered every_ _name my mother and I mentioned in the whole conversation._ She wondered how he’d managed it. She was scarcely able to keep everything in her own head, and she didn’t have to remember every town’s name as well. 

“No, m’lady” 

“Here, Gendry.”, Arya pointed at it. “Do we know when he’ll attack?” 

“No. Though he might be marching as we speak, and arrive there in a week. Two at most.” 

Her head was aching from all the possibilities that added, so she just said them aloud. Maybe that would help. 

“Ahh … So if we close the Red Fork, Lord Tywin will go south, join with the Rose here if we have bad luck, and then … He could either try to go to the west again, or he’ll defend King’s Landing if Stannis attacks it. I’d say that makes more sense, for him. If he goes west, King’s Landing will be missing some protection … maybe Joffrey would be killed, so he won’t do that, probably. But if we let him pass by, he might run into Robb’s trap, and only the Tyrells will be close enough to defend King’s Landing when Stannis arrives, so he might kill all of them for us, right?” 

“Yes …”, her mother said, sounding only half-convinced, and then the question came she’d dreaded all the time. “Arya? How is it that you know anything about strategy and battles? Has Maester Luwin given you some secret lessons I don’t know about? I specifically forbade him to teach you anything about it.” 

_What am I supposed to say now?_

At last, she managed a “You did”, so that at least she wouldn’t blame Maester Luwin, who’d always been kind to her. And sometimes he _had_ taught her things she probably wasn’t exactly meant to know, but he’d never disregarded one of her mother’s orders. Mostly, he’d taught about how the Wildlings probably lived. She’d always found that terribly exciting, and it was part of why she’d known enough to survive on the road. 

“So how – ” 

She did not like to tell her, but what choice was there? She’d guess it anyways, sooner or later. “Because I have a brother who taught me everything I wanted to knew about it.” 

A long pause, then – 

“Robb?” 

“I’ve got other brothers beside him”, she snapped, more angry than before. _Why can’t she_ _ever accept that not all my brothers are also her sons?_

“Jon Snow?” 

“Yes. And don’t be mad at him, he saved my life with everything he taught me more than once by now.” 

It had sounded like a good thing to say, at least in her head, but Arya quickly came to regret it. 

“That sword? Is that from him, too?” 

Arya hesitated a moment, before saying “Yes.”, then quickly adding, Don’t look at me as if it was a bad thing. I’d be dead if not for Needle. Well, and for Syrio. Father paid him to teach me how to use it. You see? Even _Father_ didn’t think I shouldn’t ever touch a sword at all, so why do you? 

It was as if from all that, only one word had found its was into her mother’s mind. 

“ _Needle?_ ” 

_Oh, gods, that name_ _…_

“Well, you were always complaining that I didn’t know how to use these stupid sewing needles, so when Jon gave me this sword, well … I thought … I’ve got my own needle, now, and I’m much better with this one.” 

“It’s true, m’lady. She saved my life with it.”, Gendry sprang to her defence. Or, at least, he tried to. From the look on her mother’s face she already knew it hadn’t worked, but that was scarcely his fault. Gendry didn’t know her mother, after all. 

“ _Arya!_ Is he saying that you – ” 

_Oh, I’ll just tell her everything, maybe then she’ll be quiet, at least._ “Oh, yes, mother, he is saying that I stabbed someone. Don’t be so horrible about it. We’d both be dead if I hadn’t. Or he’d be dead and I would still be in King’s Landing as Joffrey’s little _toy_. Now, could you please do all the shouting later and tell your brother he’s too stupid to lead an army?” 

_That’ll be an interesting conversation. I haven’t even met him yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really not sure about this chapter.
> 
> Half of it looks like a smoking trainwreck, at least to me (that is, incidentally, also the reason why I haven't posted this one yesterday). Of course, I had to have a reason to avoid the Red Wedding (there is truly no return after that, and even without Edmure's blunder things aren't really bright for King Robb), and the only change I've introduced till now are Arya and Gendry being at Riverrun, therefore it has to be them who prevent it (everything else would just be cheating).
> 
> I hope, I really, _really_ hope this didn't come out of the blue for you (and I was careful to drop hints about Jon and Arya playing little strategy games). Still, this is the first thing I've ever written that needed a bit of a build-up (or at least one I had to consciously incorporate into the rest of the story. With Lommy and Hot Pie, everything was just the way it happened, or the way I could see it happen).
> 
> Thoughts? Also, in case anyone else here knows a thing or two about informatics (yes, I'm still refusing to call it "computer science"), did anyone spot the references?


	3. Gendry

The room he shared with Kevan and Koval, the other apprentice smiths, might have been small but Gendry loved it nonetheless. He couldn’t even put his finger on _why_ , but he enjoyed every bit of it. The little chest for their belongings where he’d placed his helmet, the table for them to sit together and talk, even the bare walls and the straw of the single bed they all shared. 

_Maybe it’s just being inside again._

That was his best guess, at least, and he suspected he might be right with that. For all that he hadn’t really minded sleeping outside, Gendry _had_ lived in a city almost his whole life, and even when he’d lived on the streets there had always been a stable or just an overhanging roof to shelter him. 

Maybe that was it. 

He didn’t really know, and he tried to not particularly care. 

The room was nice enough, and it was dry; that was all that really counted, except maybe that he was now a smith’s apprentice once more, to Master Rymond this time. His first day of work would be waiting for him tomorrow, a day of mending armour and sharpening swords. 

That should be nice, he thought, to be in a forge again, even if was just to sharpen swords. But that was only tomorrow; today had already happened quite enough, if one would’ve asked him – not that anyone did. After arriving some steward or other had asked if he had a trade, had assigned him to Master Rymond and shown him this room. Gendry would have been happy to just fall into the bed then and there, but after that there had been Arya discussing battle plans – why she’d asked for him to attend was beyond him – then a conversation with her mother he rather wished he hadn’t had, _then_ there had been an angry Ser Edmure, angry at being proven wrong – though thankfully, by then Lady Stark had already dismissed him, and he’d only seen him, with his anger written so clearly on his face that even Gendry had been able to read it, in the corridor. 

Part of him wished for this day to just _end_ , to hope that when he woke up the next morning it would be to shouting on the streets in King’s Landing, or at least to shouting in the courtyard of Riverrun with a day of work ahead, a day without angry lords and ladies. 

And another part of him insisted that he shouldn’t go to sleep just yet, that there was still something missing … 

_Or has she forgotten already?_

Anyways, it wasn’t like he could just go to sleep; that, he felt, would be tremendously insulting to Kevan and Koval, both of whom he’d only seen for a few moments, and who still were downstairs, in the forge with their father. 

Gendry had never been one for socialising, but even he knew that it wouldn’t do to just ignore the people who’d taken him in, even if it was on the Lord’s orders. 

And of course, there was still something missing … 

He only really realized what it was when a boy knocked on the door and told him that “the Lady Arya requests your presence”. 

For half a second he wondered if it was a request he could deny, but then again, he didn’t really want to miss a chance to see his friend. 

It wasn’t like there would be a lot of opportunities for seeing her in the next few days, after all, or maybe forever. 

Arya’s – he had, after all, promised not to call her _lady_ when no one else was present, and he dearly hoped that no one except him was present in his mind, no matter how her mother’s looks made him feel as if she _was_ there – Arya’s rooms were lavish, a great chamber high up the triangular keep with a phenomenal view downriver, the walls covered with fancy paintings of long-dead knights and kings and ladies. He didn’t see any sign of a bed, but there was a doorway on one side, and he concluded that her bed must be behind. 

Quietly, he marveled on the luxury of having more than one room; not even Master Mott had been able to afford that, and he’d been the richest and most successful smith in all of King’s Landing. 

_And all that for the young daughter_. Gendry couldn’t even begin to imagine how the Lord’s chambers must look like. 

Suddenly he was glad of his own small chamber with bare walls; maybe he had to share it with two other boys, but if he’d lived in _this_ , he’d have only thought of his father, and how he didn’t want to become like him, all fat and useless. 

Arya sat behind a table in the chamber’s far end, with a glass in her hand and some elaborately worked sort of bottle in front of her. She looked up when he came in, and after a moment gestured for him to sit across the table. 

_And I’d though it was awkward, that one time a customer brought his daughter with him to_ _the forge._

Coming closer, he saw the liquid in her glass looked like wine. When he finally reached his chair and sat down he almost stumbled over his own foot. Why was he even here, in these rich rooms? 

_What happened to the little girl who happily drank her ale faster then me?_

Finally, she broke the painful silence. 

“Would you like some?”, he voice came, and it sounded so reserved and formal that Gendry had to shiver; He _had_ expected for her family to maybe throw him out of the castle, but he’d never dreamt Arya herself might ignore their friendship so readily. 

_Calm down, Gendry_ , he told himself, _No one’s throwing you out just yet, you’re just_ _seeing this in your head, they’ve even given you a place to sleep at night, and work for the_ _days_ , but it didn’t help. 

“I - I’ve never drunken any wine before m’ - …” 

He cursed himself for almost saying _m’lady_ , though without it, somehow the sentence felt even more out of place. 

“Oh, come on, Gendry. I insist.” 

In a way, her using his name made it even harder for him to hear. Arya took the fancy bottle-like thing and poured some of the wine into a glass, which she then placed before him. Slowly, very slowly, wondering what exactly had happened and _isn’t Arya_ _a bit young for drinking wine_ he took the glass, held it to his lips and took a sip. 

He nearly chocked on it; the stuff was _sour_ and not at all what he’d expected or had imagined it. Involuntarily he spit half of it out, thinking that he was now most certainly doomed; he was sure that no one was supposed to spit the wine out. 

Then, suddenly, the ice broke, and Arya was _laughing_ , inexplicably, and soon he was laughing to, while Arya said something like “You really thought I was serious?”. 

After they’d both calmed down enough to actually speak again, she continued. 

“I’m not even allowed to drink wine. These are the guest’s quarters, someone must have forgotten it here, some time ago … I think it went sour already. Anyways, I just kind of had to, you know – ” 

“You mean, you set this all up? Requesting my presence, the wine, that fancy bottle, the glasses …” 

“Ah, sorry about Tom. I told him to ask you if you wanted to come, I wasn’t really sure if you would, you know, after everything today, but … well, just know you can always refuse these calls, too, at least if they’re from me, and when there isn’t one, you can just come here anyways, I’ve told the guards to let you in. But yeah, I did the rest. Playing the lady, too. Do you know how hard it is to hold your face straight no matter what happens? I swear it’s harder than hunting, I’ve got no idea how my sister ever managed it.” 

For half a second a faraway look passed her face, but then it was gone again, and Gendry couldn’t be sure if it had been there at all. 

“You’re good a’ it, though. I never thought you might be tricking me.” 

“Well, you’re _stupid_ , then. I was on the brink of laughing the entire time. But anyways, I actually asked for you because I thought, well …” 

But she didn’t have to tell him; he already knew. Not long after, they were back to telling each other stories as they’d done every other night until now, first across the table, but at some point the moved to the floor, half-pretending that there was a campfire nearby. Later, Gendry could never be entirely sure whose idea that had been, and he liked to think that maybe they had just both thought of it at the same time. 

Unlike the other times, thought, they both had new stories waiting to be told; Gendry about Master Rymond and his sons and the little chamber in which he’d sleep tonight, Arya about what else her mother had told her, and about how her uncle had reacted. 

“You know, she actually sent me out of the room first. Said she feared Ser Edmure’s reaction to me, and that there’s no need for him to know just how much of … not a lady his niece is.” 

There was something in her voice, something that he’d come to know during their previous trading of stories: she spoke in the same slightly-strained tone she always spoke of her status as a lady. 

“Anyways, there was no one outside the door, so I just sneaked back there and listened. Mother didn’t actually say that it was my plan, though. Still, Edmure shouted. _A lot._ And mother shouted, too, at times, but I think Edmure agreed with her at the end.” 

It was only late in the night that they both went to bed (they found that having candles nearby was supremely handy while telling stories after sundown), and the next day he’d likely fell asleep halfway during the day, but in that moment, he didn’t at all care. 

Over the next few days it started to feel more and more natural; he’d be working during the day, and no matter how tired he was, he’d always exchange at least one or two stories with Arya. 

Around them, of course, life also resumed, with men riding out and upriver, demolishing the barricades that had already been built, with – as Arya told him one evening – Edmure making pointless (but harmless) battle plans so he wouldn’t feel too useless, and with scouts searching for sign’s of Lord Tywin’s approach. 

So it was that, only half a week after he’d arrived, though it felt much longer, Gendry stood with half the castle’s population in the small sept, lighting a candle beneath the painted face of the Warrior, and the Crone. He’d never been the most godly sort of boy, or one to pray very often, but he felt it wouldn’t go amiss. 

This night, Lord Tywin would cross the Red Fork. 

Maybe, later, Gendry would visit the godswood, too. He’d never been in one before, and didn’t know what he might find there, but he figured that with Arya coming from the north it maybe would be more appropriate to pray to these old wooden Gods. 

So he left the sept – which truly was the only place of this castle that he could visit without being overwhelmed by its riches, after seeking shelter in Bealor’s more than once when he’d been a boy on the streets – with everyone else after the septon had finished his prayers, and slowly made his own way to the wood. 

He didn’t know what exactly he had expected, but he was quite certain that this wasn’t it. Arya’s stories had painted a wild place not unlike the woods they’d travelled through, overgrown with bushes that had been allowed to sprawl all over themselves, with a massive, ghastly white tree in its centre. 

This here reminded him more of the gardens outside of the capital’s walls, were tourneys were held and ladies could walk without getting any mud on their feet. The trees were neatly kept in check, the grass mown short with flowers in it, but not a single weed. There even were low walls in it, with carved statues on top of them. 

Only in its middle could he get a glimpse at something that reminded him of Arya’s tales: the tree might be carved and kept from sprawling out too far, but it was still a bony white with blood-red leaves. He’d never really understood why a face carved into a tree’s trunk should make it a holy place, but the face, red and terrible as it was, certainly emanated a power quite on par with that of a septon’s incense. 

He found Arya kneeing in front of it, muttering under her breath. 

_She’s praying_ , he realized, and wondered why he was so surprised. 

Respectfully, he kept his distance, as not to disturb her. 

Eventually she rose; and when she turned around and saw him he could see a smile on her lips, though it looked forced. He wasn’t a master face-reader, but even he could see the worry underneath her happy mask. 

“Gendry”, she called for him, and soon he was trying to distract her. 

Strolling through the garden together, Arya told him how insufficient this godswood felt, compared to that of Winterfell, and how the heart tree looked there, with a face weeping blood. 

Gendry, who’d thought this one’s face quite frightening enough for him was more than a bit disturbed by this, but he kept it quiet, and hoped she wouldn’t notice. 

By then the sun had already begun to set, and Arya was dragging him up to the battlements of the southern wall, to watch. Up there, it was colder than he would’ve liked, but they didn’t have to wait for very long. Far in the south, just near enough that he could still see them, a thousand torches crawled across the land, a fiery procession of enemy soldiers. 

_When did I start picking sides in this war?_ , he wondered, more than a bit surprised by his own thoughts. 

But yes, now that he actually thought on it, these men down there, that were enemies, men who would’ve gladly killed him and Arya, and probably the rest of the castle’s population, too, be they man or woman, knight or fleeing peasant. 

He hated them; and suddenly he could understand why Arya’s uncle wanted to stop them here. How could anyone allow them to move freely? 

And others felt the same way, too, he noticed. They weren’t the only ones who had come to watch, and in the other men’s faces he could see blank hate, hate and disgust at the men who’d burned their land and property. 

Suddenly, he had to remember the village where Lommy had died, and wondered if maybe it once was the home of one or two of the men who now stood with them, looking. 

Had one of these men here sown the carrots that they’d plugged out of the ground? Had one of them tended to the chickens they’d found charred and burned? 

Arya wasn’t quiet about her feelings, either, and when finally they left while the worms of deadly people still crawled over the nearest ford – he’d been told there were others further up the river, where undoubtedly just now even more men crossed the waters – her face was the very image of uncertainty and doubt. 

“What if I was wrong?”, she muttered, over and over again, and over and over again, he tried to reassure her that it wasn’t possible, that there was nothing they could have missed. 

He wished he himself could believe it. 

After that night everything about the castle seemed to change; while nothing much looked any different – it were the same walls imprinted with images of fish, the same buildings and the same anvils in the forge – nothing was as it had been before. Everyone seemed strained, just on the brink of snapping and shouting, even Master Rymond, who had previously seemed as implacable as a rock. 

Most importantly, Arya had changed. Maybe she hadn’t been cheerful before, but now it was downright disturbing. Since the days on the road when she would speak nothing at all, shortly after Lommy had died, he’d kept an eye on her and on how much she ate, even now, when she was at the high table and he in the back of the hall. What he saw was disquieting. He tried to tell her as much during their daily storytellings, only for her to snap at him and to exclaim “not you, too! I’m _fine!_ ”. 

He could only suspect that her mother had already said the same, and that she hadn’t succeeded, either. 

Then, after three days of a restless, withdrawn Arya, when they were once more at trading tales – which was hard, considering that she tried to hold back every word that might pass her lips, but still, she struggled through it – she suddenly said, in that low, quite voice that he knew all too well but had wished he’d never have to hear again: 

“I should be there.” 

It took him a second to realize what she’d said. He’d just been halfway through recounting one of the tales they told about her brother, the Young Wolf, and his exploits in battle. 

“I should be _there_ , Gendry, with him. If something goes wrong …” 

Madly, he hoped this was some joke of hers, but of course it wasn’t. The lighthearted girl who’d tricked him into drinking sour wine had gone days ago. 

“I’ve got Nymeria and her wolves, I could help him.” 

_She can’t be serious, can she?_ , he thought, but her face told him otherwise. 

“Listen, Arya. You’ve never been in a battle before, and neither have your wolves. You would only get yourself killed, and them as well.” 

“I might have killed Robb already.” 

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept quiet. 

“I know everyone says that there can’t be anything wrong about my plan, but … they said that of Uncle Emdure’s, too. What if he was right, and I was wrong?” 

“You aren’t wrong, Arya.” 

A flicker of _something_ passed over her face, and Gendry dared to hope. 

“I believe in you”, he added. 

“That doesn’t make it true. You know, on the road whenever you didn’t know what to do you’d ask me. But I didn’t know, either. I just guessed.” 

He was about to say if that was so,then she must be very good at guessing, but she had already continued talking. 

“I was just lucky. You all thought I knew what to do, I didn’t. I _didn’t_ know that the Kingsroad would be safe, I didn’t know that Lommy and Hot Pie would survive that night in the village. I _never_ knew. I just guessed. And no one can always be right, with guessing.” 

Again, he wanted to say that she hadn’t _guessed_ , he’d been there, he’d seen and heard how she’d worked it out, but again she cut his thoughts off. 

“You’ve got to help me.” 

“What?” 

“You have to help me. To get out. They won’t let me out anymore, because I’m a lady and all, but I _have_ to.” 

It took him a moment to understand what she was asking. 

_She wants me to smuggle her out of her uncle’s castle, into a battle._

“Your uncle would have my head”, he said, hoping she cared enough about him. 

“He won’t.”, she said, then took a piece of parchment and a quill, wrote something – which he obviously couldn’t read – and laid it on her bed. 

“I’ve written that he shouldn’t blame anyone, especially not you. And I’ve asked mother to keep Edmure from doing anything stupid, and to get you someone to teach you how to read. See? He won’t have your head.” 

For a moment, she stopped, and then admitted “I would do it alone, but I can’t. I went all around the castle today after noon, and there are guards everywhere, except in the part between the north gate and where the Tumblestone flows in. But I can’t climb down there, and it’s too high to jump. But there’s a spare rope in the gatehouse, that no one will miss. I only need you to hold it while I climb down the wall.” 

“This is mad”, he told her, because it definitely _was_ mad. 

“You promised to get me out again, remember? I wouldn’t even have come here, if not for you. _Please_ , Gendry, you promised.” 

Gendry remembered that promise well enough, made in the early hours of the day they’d come to Riverrun. He’d hoped that she’d forgotten it. 

_I could break it_ , he thought, _she’d be safe, here, and I_ _… well, I guess I would work at the_ _forge._

Their meetings would stop, though, he had no doubt of that, but if it meant that Arya wouldn’t just run into danger … 

“ _Please_ , Gendry”, she was begging now, “you promised, and Father used to say that a promise was almost like a vow …” 

But once she’d mentioned her father, he thought of his own, the fat and drunken king he’d been. 

He’d sworn himself to be a better man. 

_And how would I be any better if I go and break the first promise I’ve ever made since_ _then?_

Slowly, very slowly, Gendry made his head perform a nod. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a weird chapter to (re)write. I had an original draft, and while going over it again and again it seemingly developed a live on its own and bent to include strange places that I hadn't thought of before (part of that might be that I was slightly drunk when I went over it again yesterday. That's also the reason I only release this today, I don't trust my drunken self to make any sensible choices in writing). I knew I wanted Gendry in the sept (which, with me not believing in any kind of deity was very hard to write; I hope the result is acceptable), but I had no idea that he would go to the godswood later.
> 
> I actually had no idea that there was a real weirwood in Riverrun, unlike the oak (was it oak? I think it was oak) tree in the Red Keep, but the wiki told me there was one, so now there's a weirwood in my story, too.
> 
> I also had never thought of Arya's joke with the wine before I wrote it, and I'm still not sure about it (moreso because I really can't judge how it turned out), but I included it anyways, as a short glimpse on a more worry-free Arya.
> 
> I'm not sure about Master Rymond, and Kevan and Koval, his sons. I normally don't like original characters, they always feel so out-of-place to me, but I think it would be equally weird not to know the names of the people Gendry interacts with on a daily basis. Already, I feel like he hasn't really got a life outside of Arya, which is always a bad sign.
> 
> Thoughts on the chapter? On my idle ramblings here?


	4. Arya 2

Her wolves ran all around her, and with them came Arya’s fears. Time and time again she urged Nymeria to go faster, but in the end it didn’t help. 

_Of course it doesn’t. You should’ve known that, too, you’re not_ Sansa! 

Through woods and forest, beneath trees and open sky they raced, hard on the heels of Tywin Lannister’s army, racing to save Robb. And while they were fast, so much faster than on her previous journey, Arya felt as if everything was moving _slower_ than ever before. 

The wolves would only travel at night, unless it wasn’t possible otherwise, so they slept by day and moved at night, but in the dark everything looked the same to her, and nothing ever changed. 

She knew it was an illusion, and that of course they were moving, but it still seemed that every night she slept under the same tree again and again, with Nymeria’s warming presence beside her, comforting her in her doubts. 

_What if I’m too late, and Robb has already been killed? What if I find him save, only to_ _discover that the Lannisters turned round and burned Riverrun instead? What if Mother’s_ _dead?_

And, at times, 

_What if_ I _die? Would anyone care, except for maybe Gendry?_

Perhaps someone _would_ care, she thought, but then it would probably only be because she’d run away again, and once she returned mother would be there to scold her on her behaviour, would say that it had been a mistake to allow her wearing a boy’s clothes, even if it had just been one day … 

Every time that dawn broke and she went to sleep she had to think of Gendry, and of them sharing stories. Some part of her hoped that he now told them all to Kevan and Koval, the smith’s boys and other apprentices. He’d seemed happy to be with them, after all. 

But of course, for the most part, she wished for him to be _here_ , with her. But of course that wouldn’t work, not ever, not with him being so scared of Nymeria. And now the whole pack was around her, not hidden deep in the woods as it had been when they’d been on their way to Riverrun. 

Truth be told, part of her was glad for him, that he didn’t have to be with her, and part of her missed him so very much. 

Most of the time, though, she tried not to think too much about him, for every time she did, she’d remember him standing there, high above her on Riverrun’s battlements, holding the rope in his hands, with the shouting that had started behind him. 

She’d run away from everything then, searching for her direwolf, but still she feared that everything there had gone horribly wrong. There was the letter, true, but … 

_What if they just ignore it? No one’s ever really listened to me, after all._

It was only two day later that she realized this wasn’t entirely true, and that at least her mother _had_ listened, at least once. 

_Only then to lie about it to her brother, and claiming it was all her idea instead._

If she’d had cared for jokes, maybe she would’ve laughed, then. 

_Family, duty, honour. Aren’t that your words, mother?_

But she didn’t laugh, the laughing girl was long gone, and so the days and nights passed by her in silence. 

Sometimes they’d come across a village, or a small holdfast, but of course there was never anyone there, not in the dead of the night, and half the time the people had already fled anyways. Sometimes there were only smoking ruins left of where once there’d been houses. 

Often, Arya felt like a ghost, hiding in the dark until its time – and place – were ready. 

And sometimes her wolves would want to raid these villages and farms, and she had to hold them back. Nymeria commanded them, for the most part, and for the most part they obeyed her, too, but there were always some trying to get around it. 

Then, once, Nymeria resisted for just the shortest of moments, after she’d made it clear she would have none of the raiding. 

_Don’t you see that you’re doing exactly what we’re trying to stop!_ , she wanted to scream at Nymeria, at all of them, but stopped short. She remembered that stupid story in an inn, so long ago, of a giant she-wolf stealing babies. 

Finally the ground grew steeper, the hills taller, with the land taking on frightening shapes in the dark. Mountains loomed into the sky far away, like giants waiting for their pray. Around them the woods grew thicker and bizarrely liveless, the way woods do at mountainsides, with the trees looking scary and bony and old, like in one of Old Nan’s tales. 

She knew there weren’t any weirwoods this far south growing wild, not anymore, but in the nights, on Nymeria’s back, she could almost have sworn otherwise. 

Sometimes, part of her expected to see a shadowcat running by, or maybe a bear, or a giant. 

_That’s just stupid_ , she scolded herself, _giants don’t exist, no more than grumkins and_ _snarks._

Part of her wondered why she felt so very much like Sansa. 

When the hills finally grew to the size of mountains and they had to find passes and search for easier ways to climb, when sometimes the valleys became so tight that it there was a wall of stone on both sides and it became hard to find any food, at last they came in view of a castle. 

A real, proper castle, not like the small holdfasts they’d come across before. 

But this wasn’t Winterfell, or Riverrun; Even if it had been the Red Keep she’d spied there, she thought it might’ve been more comforting. This building wasn’t pretty, not even in the rough and grim way Winterfell had always been; this was a merciless heap of stone, a fortress standing on guard, with torches and men with arrows perpetually nocked above its high, foreboding walls. 

If the mountains had seemed like giants, then she truly did not know what this thing was. They might’ve been much higher, but if anything that made them less scary; the way these towers loomed above her and her wolves was more than enough to frighten her well and truly. 

This must be the Golden Tooth, she supposed, that tiny, seemingly inconsequential little dot that had been on the map back in Riverrun, grown large and lifelike and terrible. 

She wondered why anyone would name it the _Golden_ Tooth. It was as golden as Ice had been, after they’d beheaded her father: not any particular colour, but with the look of death and dread about it. 

And maybe this blade was already bloody, and her brother’s dead, lifeless corpse was waiting for her behind it, held in its trap. 

_Behind it._

She had to get behind it. 

That really shouldn’t be a problem, she thought, not one of these guards would be watching for wolves, much less a direwolf with a princess on its back … 

… but still, she couldn’t help it. 

What if they saw her? 

What if just one arrow was set loose on her? She’d seen the holes and dents a well-shot arrow would leave in a plate of armour; without it, there was no chance of surviving, surely. 

Nymeria seemed to have no such qualms, though. Beneath her the direwolf did barely even slow down at all as this great fortress came into sight, seemed to barely spend a thought on it. 

Arya very dearly wished she could be a wolf, too, then. Maybe then fear wouldn’t grip her the way it did. 

_Don’t be so absurd. Nothing’s going to happen, just get on with it!_

If only that were as easy as it sounded in her head. 

As they drew closer, slowly, terribly slowly, it felt as if something poured water over her back, and then over her head; finally, she realized it was her dread. Then she could start to feel herself sweating, while her clothes grew damp she could see her hands shaking madly in Nymeria’s fur, who still trotted on as if nothing was amiss. 

And of course there wasn’t anything wrong, there _wasn’t_ , no one was going to notice them, after all. 

Still she felt like she’d felt fighting in the keep besides the Gods Eye, like she’d felt when she thought that Yoren was some thug who’d come to kill her. 

When the castle was so close she could make out individual stones, and individual men through the dark she buried herself in Nymeria’s fur, hiding and hoping that no one would notice her. 

She could feel the the direwolf’s muscles working, thundering across the ground, could _hear_ the others around her, and finally, madly, she slipped into the beast’s mind. 

Running and running, and then suddenly they were past, and not long afterwards Arya emerged again, sat up and looked ahead. Dawn had just begun to break, just enough for her to make out an enormous valley, and like a scar there were the signs of an army having passed through in the green grass. 

Her clothes were soaked, soaked from her own sweat, but she didn’t care. 

_We’re hunting Lord Tywing into his own lands_ , she thought. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one's a bit on the short side, and that there isn't that much happening, but I still felt that it was important, and I hope I succeeded in seeding one or two things here.
> 
> What do you think?


	5. Catelyn 2

It was always as dark as in the dead of the night in Riverrun’s cells, and the walls seemed to drink what little light her candle provided her with. Catelyn found it hard to find her way to the bastard’s cell, and if not for Brienne’s steady and sure presence beside her, she might have gone astray already. 

Her days had grown darker again, seeming even worse than they had before. In the very moment she’d seen Arya standing there in the courtyard she’d felt hope again, a feeling that had almost been lost to her. But then over the next few days it had grown; Arya might be difficult, and it might be hard for both of them to adapt, but she’d believed all that would come in time. 

Oh, how naïve she’d been. 

Oh, how cruelly that spark had found itself crushed, crushed beneath a thin, inconsequentially-looking sheet of paper, but a piece of paper that made her feel the cold of winter as if it had been the Wall itself. 

With it, darkness had fallen again, and her hopes as well. In hindsight, she supposed she really should have known the happiness would not last forever. 

It never had; not with Brandon, not with Ned, not even with her father, who’d used to joke he’d outlive them all. 

That did not change the shock she’d felt when Utherydes Wayn had come running, to tell her that they’d captured her daughter’s bastard friend lowering someone over the castle’s walls. 

Of course, Arya had always befriended just about everyone; she knew the name of every servant in the castle as well as Catelyn herself, and with most of them she’d been friends as well, not to mention countless playmates of dubious birth and standing she’d met in the winter town. 

Still, Catelyn would have never suspected she’d be fooled by a Lannister spy. That had been the steward’s theory, and eagerly she had adopted it. There had of course been a vague sense of danger – a spy in Riverrun, and his messenger escaping was nothing to be taken lightly, and of course Edmure had had Gendry incarcerated immediately – but still she’d slept comfortable that night, or at least more so than in the one that was to follow it. 

For when the sun rose Arya did not attend the usual morning meal – which was nothing too unusual, as she had often preferred just visiting the kitchen and bullying the servants into giving her something. In fact, she hadn’t done it since returning to her, and in a weird inversion of her usual reaction to it Catelyn had in fact been almost happy noticing it, happy that the old Arya was slowly returning to her. 

That was, until she later entered her daughter’s chambers – even if she was secretly happy about her spirit resurfacing, that did not mean she could get away with it unchastened – and found the letter lying on the table by her bedside. 

Somehow, she hadn’t even had to read it, hadn’t _wanted_ to read it, and yet her shaking hands had takenit as if they had their own will. 

_Mother_ , it had run, _I’m sorry I’m gone again. But I have to go and save Robb, and_ _Sansa too. I can’t loose them. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Nymeria will help_ _me._

Dimly, she’d wondered how often she herself had wanted to do the same. How often had she dreamt of placing her hands around Cersei’s throat? Around Lord Tywin’s? 

Not so long ago, when she’d watched his army cross the river had she wished to force them to a halt, had suddenly understood her little brother so very well … 

That one line would have been enough to shatter her. 

But of course it didn’t end there. 

_If you want to blame my missing on someone, blame me. I might end up requiring_ _Gendry to get out of the castle, but just know that neither he nor anyone else forced_ _me to do this. Trust me, he could not fake this, he cannot even read, much less_ _write._

Of course she’d known that; she’d heard him admit it, after all, in that room during their fateful conversation. 

Still, she felt that she had failed. Mere moments after Arya was gone, even before her absence had been noted, the bastard had found himself in a cell as deep beneath the castle as one could build a shaft on an island without water breaking through. In fact the very walls around here were dripping wet, the ground muddy. 

Somewhere a distant part of her thought that in a way these were great news; after all, there’d never been a spy then, and no information passed on to Lord Tywin. 

If only she could think about that, then maybe she would stop wondering why Arya had willingly chosen to go. Numbly, she remembered Renly’s summer knights. Her daughter had seen more of the true shape of the world than all of them together; surely there had to be a good reason for what she’d done. 

But then, Catelyn was well acquainted with the power that doubt could hold in a person’s mind. 

_If you can, try to get Uncle Edmure make the Maester – Vyman, I think his name is –_ _teach him something, how to read and write at least. I should guess there’s a knight’s_ _education in there for saving a princess?_

That passage had baffled her the most. Arya had never once referred to herself as princess before, not even as a lady. She allowed others to call her that, but would always grumble at it, and had quickly made it clear to her maids and some of the stewards that they were to either call her by her name or not at all. And yet here she used her title, and in a way Catelyn had not yet expected from her. 

_She’s using it to give her words more weight._ There was something almost like cunning about it, something she hadn’t expected at all from her. It was the kind of thing she would’ve put in a letter to someone whose reaction she wasn’t sure about – Lysa maybe, or Petyr. To see it directed at her, and from her own daughter … 

Still, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t grant that request. Edmure had thrown the boy in a cell, and then he’d rode of to close the Red Fork behind Lord Tywin, trying to keep his bannermen happy if nothing else. And even before that he’d refused to speak with her, ever since the day she’d told him of the plan’s true origin. 

Without him, there was little she could do about the boy’s situation. 

At least it had been relatively easy to get the guards to let her though, without her brother there. 

Now, in the dim light of her lantern, surrounded by oppressing, damp walls she read the letter again, one last time before speaking with the bastard who’d done so much. 

_Sorry I’m leaving again, mother. But I have to go. Your daughter, Arya._

When she’d first read it, the farewell had left her in tears, and with a burning anger for everyone who’d been responsible for planting this idea in her head. She had raged, she had screamed, and finally, she had wept. 

Wept for her young girl, who had only just come back. Her stay had been so short, that she only afterwards realized that they had never really talked about what else would happen, what they’d do now. Catelyn had never even thought to tell her that she was betrothed, nor that Robb himself was. _I only wanted to give her peace for a time. Why did_ _the Gods had to take it all away again?_ She’d spend hours in the little sept of Riverrun, and then again hours in the godswood, where she’d always been and would always remain a stranger, but she’d thought that maybe these old forest Gods might help Arya more, who’d always looked so much like her Ned. Yet for all her trying, she hadn’t found an answer. 

Finally, she’d visited her father again after that night, and told him everything that had occurred, but he couldn’t offer her a solution, either. Catelyn couldn’t even be sure if he’d still heard her. 

So now she was here, on her way to the one person who might give her an answer. It shamed her to admit, but at times it had seemed as if he knew her daughter better than she herself did. 

Edmure had blamed everything on him, had thrown him in a cell, and Catelyn thought she understood. 

_It’s so much easier to find faults in others, while one is faced with his own mistakes and_ _errors._

It was all that her sweet brother could do to keep his men loyal, after the disaster that had been his battleplan, with its army already assembled, and now with loosing the sister of his king. 

So Edmure – that same man who’d let the smallfolk in, even though they’d only be useless mouths if it came to a siege – had thrown the boy in the deepest hole he’d been able to find in the castle, for her son to punish him for his crime. She hadn’t protested, had found it so terribly easy to blame the bastard when the only other to be blamed would be her daughter. 

At least, until she remembered the stormlord’s reaction to their King’s death, and what had really happened in that dreadful night. She had taken his supposed murderess as her own sworn shield, as much to protect the girl as to protect herself, because she’d known her to be innocent. 

How was this any different, when Arya herself had told her that Gendry was not to receive any blame? 

Still, he _had_ lowered her from the battlements, she knew that for a fact. 

There had to be some reason _why_. There had to be. 

_I have to know. What has happened on that road, that she runs away from me again? That_ _she runs into an open knife and rips all plans to pieces when she herself was the one to draw_ _them?_

Again and again she’d searched for answers. 

_What happened on that road?_

So now here she stood, in front of a door that was so ancient that it didn’t even have a proper lock, only a rusted metal bar halfway rusted through. The door itself was heavy old oak slowly rotting away in the dampness, and even for Catelyn it was easy to open. Inside it was no better. This was the bowels of Riverrun, and it certainly looked and smelled the part. 

Inside, in the meagre shine of her candle she found the boy, lying nimbly in a corner, his arms and legs bound in iron shackles. She also found the source of the stench, where his own shit had started to gather beneath him. The chains prevented him from moving, so he had to lay on it. 

_As broken as that door might be, he cannot even move a foot._

When she’d first seen him, he had been a young and handsome boy, even if starved from his journey and with mud on his face. Now, there was only a little shade of that left. His face was dirtier than she would have thought possible, yet when he raised it and looked at her, his eyes were the same piercing ice-blue they’d been before, though now they seemed clouded and darker. 

_More like Lord Renly’s, now._

She wondered if he’d meet with his death, too. It was, she thought more to distract herself, a good thing she’d left Brienne outside in the corridor, if one could call that ark earthy hole a corridor. 

“Am I dead?” 

Catelyn stayed silent. She did not know. Yet she had to give him an answer, for why else would he answer her questions in turn? It was not like she could give him anything that might help him in this position. 

“That’s for my son, King Robb, to decide. You will stay here until then.” 

“Well, it’s not like I’ll be running of.” 

He stopped there, but she knew what he’d left unspoken. _Unlike your daughter._

The boy stayed silent again, and Catelyn wondered what to do with him. _If I ask him_ _outright, he won’t tell me anything. But then, how?_ She wondered if she should have brought wine with her, to loosen his tongue. 

“Arya said she’d leave a letter”, the boy told her. _I know_ , she thought, _but I am at loss for_ _what to do. Is that why I am here, because he knows so much about Arya that I_ _don’t?_

“Has anyone e’er read it? Or’d you burn it in one o’ these great hearths you have up there? Must be nice and warm were you live, all nice and proper. Could do with a bit of warmth down ’ere.” 

“I’ve read it.” _try to get Uncle Edmure make the Maester – Vyman, I think his name is –_ _teach him something_ , the words came back, _yet I didn’t even do as much as open my mouth_ _when he was thrown in here._

“Why?”, she finally blurted out, unable to restrain herself any longer, “Why did you help her to get out? Why does the letter say you saved her life, when you admitted it was the other way round? Why did you ever come here in the first place?” 

For a moment of complete silence, the boy stared at her with these icy eyes he had. 

Then he started chuckling. It was a low sound, the laugh of a doomed man who knew his fate. She looked at him as she had used to look at Jon Snow, or Theon, whenever he had smiled, with the unspoken question of what he thought so funny. 

“Why”, he laughed, “I’d ne’er thought I’d hear a highborn askin’ me why, is all, m’lady” he paused a bit, then continued, “you highborns have ne’er cared about the likes o’ me, so no one ever asks us _why_. Other than Arya, that is. Is that answerin’ your question?” 

“No. That does not explain why you are here, and why Arya is not.” 

“O’ course it does. I’m here ’cause Arya helped me, an’ she’s not here ’cause she’s carin’ for others more than for herself.” 

“You did not need to help her carry out her plans. Plans of young girls seldom succeed.” _No matter how good their intentions._

“Better than th’ ones of certain lords, I’ve heard.” 

He gave a laugh again. _He’s mad_ , she thought, _the loneliness in the cell has driven him_ _mad._

“I’d think that is quite another story.” 

“Stories. Me and Arya, we used to tell each othe’ stories, you know? M’lady. Well, le’ me tell you one, then. You know, on that last day befo’re we reached this castle. We’d been ridin’ for ages, me in the back ’cause I’m no good with a horse, her in front with the reins, and then, su’enlly she turns us ’round, and proclaims she couldn’t go to Riverrun after all, ’cause her sister was still in the city, you know, the one she’s been complainin’ ’bout all the time, that one. She said she’d hav’ to do tha’ now, then and there, ’cause once she’d here there wouldn’t be no way out for her again. So I promised her, should she e’er need to get out, I’d help her … Might be you’d have ne’er even heard from her again, o’erwise. You’re askin’ why I didn’t break my promise? Just bein’ honest, I’d guess, always thought that’s what’s supposed t’be right. Look where it got me now, bein’ honest and true. Arya told me you’re caring much for honour up north, but I havn’t noticed yet.” 

What she heard made her innards turn to stone. What would Arya lead to that idea? 

“ _Why? Why would she want to turn back?_ ”, she asked again, her voice cutting through the silence like a sword through the air. 

“Why? Oh, I guess … I guess it was ’cause she thought you wouldn’t want her anymore, wha’ with all that blood on her pretty little girlish hands, that’s why”, he said, in a pretend-casual tone, a mad laugh on his face, almost a sneer, as if he thought all this hilarious. 

She thought the bastard continued to speak, but she didn’t hear it. Fleeing out of the dungeon, past a bewildered Brienne, barely holding back her tears she made her way to her chambers before collapsing in a sobbing heap. 

The words seemed to follow her, cruelly echoing in her mind. 

_She thought you wouldn’t want her anymore._

On her way she wondered if she was truly so bad a mother, but all thoughts were drowned by the booming echo. 

_She thought you wouldn’t want her anymore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, that was a tough chapter to write (again, getting Catelyn right is _hard_ , and I'm really not sure if I succeeded). Also, there's Edmure's decision-making, which I'm not sure is in-character for him.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked it. If not, critique (well, constructive one at least) is always appreciated.


	6. Arya 3

Before her, the great valley opened up, an endless line of marvellous grass and trees, framed by giant mountains on either side. Arya thought the ones in the Vale of Arryn could not possibly be any higher, even though Maester Luwin had always said they were the tallest ones in all of Westeros. It was a truly remarkable sight, and if she’d cared to enjoy it, maybe she would have tried to climb one of these hills a bit north from her and climbed on a tree there. She would have left Nymeria on the ground, while she herself would climb on its branches, as good as Bran had ever done. 

Yet Bran had fallen down, and Arya could not find enjoyment in the mountains’ beauty. To her, they were like giant cliffs, like the walls of a great and monstrous prison where she’d been captured inside. The setting sun behind her had the color of blood, and the sky above an icy blue so hard and threatening she almost feared to look. 

And of course, there was the gash, the crack that was before her, with the brown and black and mud of it in stark contrast to everything else. It was what an army left behind, an army on the march. 

Arya found it hard to look at, but even harder to look at the lands surrounding it. 

Instead, she often buried herself in Nymeria’s furs again, and sometimes, she’d even slip inside her. 

Then, she could forget to be afraid, then, when she was no little girl, but a giant wolf with an even larger pack of her little cousins with her. But Arya still found it difficult to control when these times where. She’d slip off into Nymeria in her sleep, or when she feared to look at the vastness of the army’s path she was following, or when she just missed her home, her human pack. Sometimes she could control it, and few were the times when she couldn’t slip into Nymeria when she didn’t want to do it; more often, she found the it was more frequent that she had trouble finding her way _back_. 

Maybe it was because when she was Nymeria, her pack was _right there_ , and she was _with_ _them_ , and neither she herself nor the anyone else needed to be afraid. But when she was Arya, she’d remember the look her mother always gave her when she was dirty, remembered Bran, sleeping, while she wondered if he’d ever open his eyes again, remembered Sansa screaming and crying as Joffrey called for her father’s head. And she’d remember Gendry, and the cry she’d heard, running away from Riverrun’s walls and the rope he’d lowered her with and into the woods. 

_Don’t be afraid_ , she told herself, _Mother will help Gendry, and Nymeria will help_ _you._

Still, it was easier inside Nymeria, who had her whole pack all around her. Even then there were thoughts of her old pack, of Ghost and Shaggydog and Grey Wind, and even of Lady and the wolf whose name she’d never learnt, so very far away. But at least Nymeria had found a new pack, and though they might be smaller and weaker than her, they still gave comfort. 

Comfort. Sometimes Arya wondered what exactly that was supposed to be. 

Comfort and Peace. Such simple things, but she had trouble getting them into her head, now. 

The one village they’d come across, that had seemed peaceful, she remembered. When they’d come through it, in the dead of the night, not a single soul had been there; not a single fire lit. How easy to think they were all asleep and at home, dreaming. 

_There’re all off at war_ , she’d thought, _there’re all out there to kill my brother._ And with that, the peace of that village had been broken, and the silence in it had assumed an eerie, terrible form of a threatening cry waiting to jump at her, as if the very houses, even the stones they’d been built of, where hissing at her, whispering threats of death and destruction. 

She’d been glad to leave it behind after that. 

The grass and trees weren’t nice, either, and there was always the scar in the land that the army had left, but she couldn’t hear the trees whispering. 

_Don’t be_ stupid _! Trees don’t talk, and neither do houses!_ , she’d told herself more than once already, but she couldn’t help it. 

So instead she stared at the gap, whether through Nymeria’s eyes or her own, and watched, and searched. Of course, there wasn’t much to be missed even with just a casual glance at it, but she could pretend. Then, she could let her thoughts drift, to Jon at the Wall, who’d surely be tracking beast for supper or some such. 

Then, she did not have to ponder on where it was that she was going, and on what she was going to do. 

But now there was no turning away now anymore, for already she could smell it when she was Nymeria, could see the crows hanging in the sky even with her own eyes, like an army of flying demons following in the wake of the living one. 

It didn’t take long for the smell to almost overwhelm her when she was a wolf, as if the stench was a rock pressing down on her. 

_Men-smell_ , she knew them, _of the men-pack that attacked my sister, and which has killed_ _members of the girl-pups own pack. The smell of rotting, and of crows, circling and waiting_ _to be fed._

But most of all, it smelled like _prey_ , and she wanted to feed these crows hanging hungry in the sky. 

At the Golden Tooth, Arya had been afraid of arrows from its high walls, but there was no such fear now. 

_They don’t see me. They haven’t even noticed my yet, though I’ve seen them for_ _days._

The wolves where so easy to overlook, and not one scout had ever noticed them. 

_Silent as a shadow. Fierce as a wolverine._

Now was the time to strike. No one could harm her on her wolf’s back, or in its mind, and no one would be able to fight them. Even though the sun was setting, they were still marching, and Jon had always said an army was most vulnerable when moving. Only a few trees where still left to hide them, only a bit of undergrowth, each little bush trampled by a thousand soldiers. 

As Nymeria fastened her pace she could soon see the last few members of the Lannister army, just barely visible behind the trees. Around her, she could feel her wolves’ growing excitement, their greed to kill. 

Slipping half into Nymeria’s mind, she thought _kill them. Kill them all._

And even before she could see the soldiers clearly, she could hear the screams, and see the wolves running all around her like an incoming flood. 

Not soon after trumpets sounded, alarms, when the attack was noticed. They tried to rally, tried to defend themselves, but no one knew how to fight wolves gone rampant. Nymeria herself was soon the beating heart of the battle, ripping throats and scratching others so they’d bleed to death, pumping the men’s blood out and onto the ground. 

On top of her rode Arya, sword in hand, and half felt like an avenging god come to slay the demons. No matter if armoured or not, they fell beneath her blade, beneath Nymeria’s claws, or in the mouths and claws of a hundred beasts come to kill them. 

Not long after the butchering had started the crows had already come, and even while they lay alive picked out people’s eyes and ripped the flesh from their bodies. While Nymeria and the others howled, Arya noticed she’d started sweating, only then to see that it wasn’t sweat at all that she’d felt on her skin; instead, it was the blood dripping and flowing, but not her own. 

There did not seem to be an end; two-legs all fell and fled under the force of the flood. Where in other battles men might have cried and screamed for their mothers, here, they were not even long enough alive for that. Whether armoured or not, with sword in hand or with food, on horseback or in the back on a wagon; none of it mattered to the wolves. 

The noise of the battle was drowning, pressuring, solid like a rock and steady as a mountain; soon, Arya barely heard it, while blood and entrails flew around her. If her goal had been to paint the world itself in red she’d have succeeded, if only for a moment. Later, she noticed that some of it – whether blood or Lannister crimson she could not say – were broken by gold and yellow and white, as some of the wagons had caught fire. Nymeria herself jumped on one, ripped the girl hidden there apart and threw the whole thing over in what was barely the blink of an eye. From time to time arrows flew into the chaos, but only seldom did they hit anything, and it didn’t take long for the archers to either run or be run down. 

And then, suddenly, there was silence. Some were moaning, or gasping in pain, but it was a deafening silence still, and for some time Arya couldn’t hear a thing. 

Where before there had been green and brown and mud, now everything was red or burning, crimson or gold, as if to herald the final resting place of the Lannisters. The wolves were all feasting; Nymeria, with Arya still slipped inside her, devoured half a man, then another, though she didn’t eat much of him; he’d been wearing his armour. Inside her mind, Arya could taste it, taste the blood on her tongue, feel the bones shattering and splintering between her teeth. 

It was only later, when the sun rose and Arya was back in her own head, that she saw the people lying dead, the women who’d been campfollowers and their children as well as the men, and realised what she’d done. 

And then the silence was broken, by a cry of despair from her own mouth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I say anything else, let me say this: I've got absolutely no idea on how an army on the march would react to a giant wolfpack attacking, and I don't really think that anyone else has.
> 
> Just to get that out of my way, 'cause normally I like to know what I'm writing about when it's at all possible (things like the feathers on dinosaurs, and also just possibly the reason why I always intend to write something about Postumus -- in case you don't know who he is: he's basically someone who split the Roman Empire in half and _got away with it_ , more or less founded his own (Gaul) Empire that continued its admittedly troubled existence for just about a decade after his death until it reunited with the main one -- but never actually do, 'cause I just end up spending endless -- though very informative -- hours on wikipedia, or in the local library).
> 
> Okay, other than that, I've got one thing to apologize for: I also have no idea how many wolves are in this pack. I never specified it, which allowes me to pretend that it's big enough to make an army break and run, but that's rather a cheap trick. Also, I'm not sure about the last few paragraphs. I think they might be a bit overblown with imagery and stuff, and I'm not really sure about my ability to write that. And it also might have been better to merge this chapter with the last Arya one; they're both a bit on the short side, and share many traits.
> 
> Thoughts? Reviews are always appreciated.


	7. Catelyn 3

A bastard and a king faced each other in the little chamber behind her father’s great hall, yet to her they both seemed so much like boys. Robb had returned only hours ago, and while he’d looked the part of the stern King in the North, but Catelyn had only been able to see the young boy, who’d foolishly broken his betrothal. Of course, word of that had come before, and by the time Robb himself had arrived in Riverrun the Freys had already been gone. Gendry, on the other hand, had spent weeks deep under Riverrun, and now looked as much like a boy as he’d seemed a man when she’d first seen him, when he’d seemed the image of Lord Renly, or a younger Robert. 

Still, the air was hard as as a brick, and that had nothing to do with Edmure’s barely averted foolishness or Robb loosing Walder Frey as an ally. Nor even with her own story of Stannis’s victory over his brother, or with Stannis’s apparent victory at King’s Landing. As of now they had only heard rumours – no raven had reached them yet, not from either side – but it seemed that he’d taken the city, though right now Catelyn couldn’t care less. 

No, Instead, it had everything to do with her daughter. Catelyn had thought so much about her these last few days, somehow it felt that this was only the logical conclusion, or that maybe she was only dreaming this now while still sitting beside her dying father’s bed, the Red Fork outside the window. _Watch for me, little Cat_ , he’d told her so long ago, _Watch_ _for me._

_Watch for me, mother_ , she’d thought then, beside that window, had thought it in Arya’s and Robb’s voices. _Watch for me._

And she had watched, watched and waited for day after day, had looked out for them through that dusty old window above a dying man’s bed. 

And Robb, at least, had come back. But before that someone else had gone from her, forever. 

_He is my only son now_ , she thought, _I must be strong for him._

Strong for him. Right now, facing the bastard, he might look as hard and unmovable as a block of pure and solid ice, and yet … there was something, something in his eyes, that betrayed his true emotions, his fury and his grief. 

Of course, there was also the Lady Jeyne, now his wife and queen, and the story of how that had come to be. Though she suspected that only parts of his tale it were true it still stood witness to his own reaction upon receiving that raven. 

_Dark wings, dark words_. Never had the saying rung with more truth than it had at that dreadful day. 

In a certain way she Catelyn couldn’t really put her finger on it felt oddly appropriate that the bastard’s hair was black. Ink-black. The black of a raven’s feathers. He’d brought bad news to her, too, after all. For days she’d searched for some hidden meaning in what he’d said to her in that dungeon, some hidden message of her daughter’s, but to no avail. However much she turned and twisted his words, she could not escape their meaning. 

Catelyn had wondered whether or not she should tell her son of it. _Maybe I should have._ _What will I do if the boys tells him? Claim that he is lying, even when it’s true?_ Robb would’ve probably believed her, but … 

Yet with all her pondering she’d missed his actual arrival, and before she’d known it he’d been there demanding for his sister. No matter how much Edmure might want him to forget it or might wish that the rider from Ashemark had never reached him, it had. 

“Mother, where’s Arya? Has she fallen ill?”, he’d asked her, after Edmure failed to answer his demand. What had she been supposed to tell him, but for the truth? 

He’d dismissed his men, ordering that only Edmure and she herself stay. In a curious way he’d seemed both boy and king then at the same time: his face as hard as Ned’s had ever been, his voice as icy as the Wall itself, all while looking so much a boy desperate to see his family. Her brother had blamed it all on the boy, on Gendry, who’d quickly been summoned and now stood in the centre of the room, Robb in front of him. Both seemed curiously lost as for what to say. Gendry had knelt, probably because someone somewhere had told him to kneel in the presence of kings, and when nothing much happened he’d stood up again, and that had been it. 

Finally, after seemingly eternal moments of quiet, Robb broke the silence. 

“Where’s my sister, boy?” 

Again a thundering silence echoed in the room, with the air feeling dense enough to cut it. 

“She won’t die, I think”, the bastard finally said, “I’m not sure about her comin’ back ’ere, though. At least not all to quickly. Might be on her way already, might be not. I don’t know. She’s your sister, not mine. Why do’ya have to ask me?” 

Catelyn wondered what it said about her success of being a mother that she wasn’t even sure whether or not Arya would _want_ to come back to her. For so long she’d been, but now … 

She wondered what Robb thought. Would he blame it on her, would he say that she’d scared Arya away? Could she even fault him for it, if he did? Or did he think the same way as Arya apparently did, in some place he’d well-hidden from her, deep inside him? 

And while she wondered, the silence stretched longer and longer, never broken. It was as if the whole of Riverrun was holding its breath, waiting for what would come next, no matter that no one except the four of them knew what this was about, and only a handful of others that they were even gathered here at all. 

But still the silence was unbroken, while the room grew colder by the second. Somehow, her thoughts found a way to Jon Snow, the other bastard Arya was – _let it still be_ was _,_ _and not_ had been, she prayed – friends with, the one Ned had sent to the Wall, now a brother of the Night’s Watch at Castle Black. She wondered if it could possibly be any colder there than it was in Riverrun’s audience chamber right now. 

Suddenly there were audible steps on the wooden floor outside, coming up to the door, and then a man burst into the room, not just shattering the silence but outright ignoring it in a way she hadn’t thought possible at all. 

Surprised and confused, she recognized him as Hermis Wort, one of the stewards. 

“Your Grace, my lord, my lady” – for a second he stopped there, as if wondering if the bastard had a title as well, or maybe wondering what exactly it was that he’d stumbled into here – “I know this is a private meeting, and so does the steward, but … he thought you might want to know that …” 

“What?” Robb snapped. 

“There’s – there’s a girl at the gate, claiming to be the Lady Arya. And though she looks like she’d lived in a forest for months, she’s got the right look as well.” 

Suddenly, Catelyn could feel her heart almost stop. Looking around, she could see relief in her brother’s face, and doubt in her son’s, but what interested her most was Gendry’s. There was hope in it, of course, but also … confusion? 

“Bring her here”, she told Hermis. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure about this chapter. Partly 'cause it's kind of short, partly because it's another Catelyn and these always feel inadequate to me, I find it really hard to write her (as I've already mentioned several times here … I'm rambling) and mostly because I find myself missing Gendry. He's only got a single chapter in this story until now, and while I really want to write more from his perspective (it's not everyday you get to build up a character so much; that's not to say that he's not a full-blown character in the books, 'cause that just wouldn't be true, but that we know very little about him, and you've got to add things to it, or it just feels lacking -- all while I don't have to go through all the trouble of creating an entirely new character, which I'm not sure I could pull off, especially not in this universe), I've found that it wouldn't really fit in this story; while I don't want to sideline him, the important stuff right now doesn't take place in his head but in the heads of others (mostly Catelyn). I'll have to try and improve on that front …
> 
> Also, there's still the issue of Edmure. I'm not entirely sure, but I think he's never said as much as a single word in this story, and this chapter doesn't change that, either. Something else to think about in the future …
> 
> Well, before I bore you all (well, probably not all. Just whoever struggeled this far) to death, I'll stop rambling here.
> 
> Thoughts? Suggestions? Errors/inconsistencies to point out?


	8. Arya 4

Arya felt as if she was moving backwards, as if for every step she made towards the the great gate of Riverrun she made two away from it, back towards the red field of her memory. Of course she knew that was utter nonsense, and yet every few steps or so she turned her head back, just to make sure it really wasn’t there any longer. 

Though she hadn’t really kept track of the time, Arya knew it must’ve been at least a week since that, and quite possibly more, but regardless of frequently she reminded herself of that, it still felt like only a second ago. So often had she tried to wash the blood off her, and by all rights she should be cleaner now that she’d ever been before in her life, but still she saw herself only in red, saw the dried blood in her clothing. 

When the guard at the gate asked for her name she struggled for a moment to speak, and then struggled a moment more for what words to say to him. He had armour on, too, and though there was a trout pictured on his chest and his coat blue instead of red she could still so easily picture him, lying there, with his throat lying in the mud, several paces away from the rest of his body. 

“I’m Arya”, she finally managed. 

His face showed confusion for a moment, which didn’t really make things better. Confusion was too close to surprise, and surprise too close to fear. 

“Princess Arya Stark, sister to the King of the North and the Trident?” 

All she could do was to nod, while the man was grinning like a madman. Half of her feared that should she open her mouth again she might try to bite him, or rip his throat and let his life’s blood spill onto the ground. 

_No, that’s not you, that’s_ her, she forcibly reminded herself. 

She wouldn’t mention the beast’s name, not even in thought. Not anymore. 

“If you’d like to follow me, I’ll escort you inside”, the blue-cloaked man told her. 

A part of her thought _you shouldn’t escort me, fool, you should shackle me and throw me_ _in a dungeon_ , another part _you should ride out and do to to my wolf, instead. It was hear_ _who killed them all, not me._

When she’d last stepped though these gates, she’d feared she wouldn’t be welcomed back. 

Now, she half believed she _shouldn’t_ be welcomed back. 

Walking through the courtyard behind her guard – that was what he was, even if he didn’t know it yet, her _guard_ , not to protect her from others, but to protect others from _her_ – she remembered the forest, and the road that led through it, on the last day before she and Gendry had first come to this castle. 

Dimly, she recalled being afraid that people would call her a monster if she ever showed her face. She wondered what she’d do, now, if anyone would jeer at her, hiss at her and call her a skinchanger, an abomination. 

_Maybe I’d agree._

But though the courtyard was busy no one looked twice at her, and no voices came hissing, condemning. 

They stopped in front of the Great Hall, and her guard had some words with the man at the door. He made no effort to keep his voice down so she couldn’t hear, which struck her as odd, until she remembered that he didn’t yet know who his was guarding from whom. 

It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t listen, anyways. Maybe, once, she would’ve, though she couldn’t be too sure. 

“Princess, I fear you have missed the feast.” 

_What cause could anyone have to host a feast, here, now?_

Her puzzlement must have clearly been imprinted on her face, for a moment later her guard said: 

“It’s in your royal brother’s honour, Princess. He has returned from the east, victorious over the Lannister beasts.” 

_He’s beaten beasts_ , she thought, _and now I’m a beast, too._

Her mouth gave a hysterical laugh, while the rest of her wondered why it did that. 

_He’s save. He’s save._

Desperately, she tried to focus on that, tried to drown out everything else from her mind. It worked as surely as not thinking of the perpetual screams in her head would’ve worked, which is to say it didn’t work at all. 

Her guard looked at her oddly, but said no more. For quite some while they stood there, while the other man who’d stood at the gate went running, presumably to her brother, or maybe the steward. 

_Crying, screaming and shouting._

Once he’d stopped talking, the noises in her head became louder again, as if she was back on the red field again, on the monster’s back. 

_Dying and routing._

At last someone else came up to them, a lean man with a weathered face and gray hair. He had a sword at his side, too, though he’d taken his armour off. Arya turned to look at him, hoping that he’d remind her less of the field than the guard with his mail did. 

At the sight of her he gave an amused smile, even if one with an underlying seriousness. Then, without further ado, he strolled up to her and hugged her fierce. 

For some moments, she was too surprised to offer him any resistance. 

“You”, he said in a smoky, hoarse voice, though much stronger than she’d expected from a man like that, “are definitely my niece’s daughter.” 

Only then did she realize who he was, who he must be. The blackfish, her mother’s father’s brother. Part of her could just make out Septa Mordane’s angry shouts, since she hadn’t realized it by the black fish that was embroidered on his tunic, though she ignored that. 

Resolutely, though somewhat reluctantly, she pushed him away. Not that it hadn’t felt nice, in fact, the man had something loving and caring about him in a wholly unexpected way – she’d certainly never known her father to make such a display in front of half the castle. She just didn’t see the point in anyone hugging her. 

“Welcome to Riverrun. By rights, that would be my brother’s sentence, or maybe my nephew’s, but since neither is here you’ll have to take it from someone who hasn’t been to this castle for more than ten years.” 

What he said seemed so absurdly irrelevant to her she didn’t know whether to be confused or amused, though her mind never really considered either of the two – for the most part it chose to ignore him entirely. 

“His grace, your brother, isn’t here right now either, may the Seven bless him – well, though I’m not a septon, I’d say they could hardly bless him more than they already did – and neither is Cat – though maybe I should call her your mother.” 

She wanted to snap at him, tell him that _of course_ she knew who her mother was, and the guard had already told her of Robb’s victories. Looking around, she realized he wasn’t here anymore. Dimly, she concluded that her uncle must have dismissed him. 

“They’re both up in the private council chamber, and as long as they’re stuffed up there and we don’t hear from them, you’ll have to put up with me.” 

For a moment he was quite, then suddenly, as if it had just occurred to him that something about their situation was a little odd, he continued. 

“I guess I should be all outraged that the first time I see my grandniece I find her covered in mud, her clothes all torn and worn with no pretty dress in sight, but you know what? I’m not really too surprised.” 

_No_ , she thought, _I’m a monster, maybe, and even if not I’m a skinchanger. Of course_ _everybody would expect me to look all torn and scratched and bloody._

“No, I’m really not surprised, not with your mother.” – _What?_ – “She used to play outside as well, all the time. She and her sister, and that boy from the fingers, all three of them, they’d go out down to the river, where they’d find some way or other to try and get rid of whatever man had been assigned the bitter luck to keep an eye one them – I should now, half the time, that man was me – and then they’d come back inside at some ungodly hour, all covered in mud. Your mother, she was the worst of the lot. Once I asked her what she’d done. You know what she said?” 

The last he said in a low, conspirational tone, bending down towards her as he did, as if he was about to share some great secret, and maybe he was. 

“She stood right up, the image of a lady, and said: ‘We baked mud pies for Petyr. He found them quite delicious, he assured us, though he liked mine a little better than my sister’s’.” 

If she’d been in her normal state of mind, it would’ve been about now that her mind would’ve started spinning and doubling over to try and accommodate a mental picture of her mother making mud pies and feeding them to a boy. But of course she _wasn’t_ entirely in her right state of mind, so now only part of her mind started spinning, tumbling up the rest, wrapping around and shaking it in the oddest of places. 

_Maybe he’s lying_ , she finally concluded. _Yes, that must be it._ Nothing could be more absurd than her mother making mud pies. _I hate him. Who’s he to speak about her in such a_ _way?_

“And now I come in this yard to find a little girl, clearly having spent some time near a river, with one of the household’s men standing by her clearly there to keep an eye on her, with the distinct look of someone who failed at his task. Who else could this girl be, then, if not of my family and house? Ah, there comes the running boy.” 

Indeed he did, though only someone as old as him could’ve rightfully called that man a _boy_. 

“Princess Arya, if you would follow me? Your mother requests your presence.” 

“That’s it, I’m afraid”, her uncle told her, “was nice to meet you, little princess.” 

Arya could hear Septa Mordane telling her to say something like _it was a pleasure, ser_ , though she ignored it. The man was probably a liar – she was almost sure he’d made all this up, and there was simply no way he truly thought she’d just spend an afternoon at a river, not with the way she had blood still sticking to her – and anyways he shouldn’t talk to her. There’d been men with gray hair, too, back at the field, and she’d seen them dead as well. 

She entered the great hall after her guard. Inside, it felt so very much like it had done before it _hurt_. In the dim light, she could just see the high table, where once she’d made her mother place Gendry, right next to her. Now it all seemed a thousand miles away, unreachable forever. 

Together, they strolled through it, almost all the way to the dais before the steward turned aside and led her to a small door she’d never noticed before. Behind it was a small, winding staircase, and at the top another door. 

Her mother was waiting behind it, she knew. 

_Crying and screaming and shouting_ , she thought, then pushed it all away. To her surprise, it almost worked, too. 

She took a deep breath, and opened the door. 

“Arya”, came a cry, and for the second time that day she found herself snuggled tightly in between someone’s arms. Again, she pushed it away, then took in her surroundings. 

She didn’t manage it, as she promptly found herself in another embrace, this time her brother’s. It was accompanied by a loud _clonk_ and someone drawing a sharp breath. Only once she’d pushed him away, too, did she see that his crown had just fallen to the ground. Robb bent down, inspected if it was still all right and placed it on his head again. 

And then suddenly, screeching, it all grind to a halt. Somehow, she’d expected a third embrace, but that one never came. 

_Of course he’s not here, Gendry doesn’t have any business being at a private meeting like_ _this, whatever it’s about –_

There he stood. 

Inexplicably she found herself taking a step forwards, then another, and another, until she was almost running, ready to jump into his arms. 

Then she saw that not only did he not wear any decent shirt – she hadn’t really noticed that; in all the time they’d spent on the road none of them ever really had any proper clothes, and none of them had cared or remarked upon it – but that also he held his hands behind his shoulders, which was something she’d never seen him do before. _And if anyone’s been playing in mud lately, it’s him._ There was some smell about him, too, though Arya tried not to think on it. Smelling was something that reminded her of the time she’d spent in her wolf’s mind too much. 

Gendry was gaping at her, astonishment clearly writ upon his face. 

Then a suspicion overcame her, and with a quick look to his feet she’d already confirmed it. There was a chain between them. Behind him stood a guard, holding him in place. 

For a moment, just a single, terrible moment, nothing at all happened. 

Then the moment was gone, and Arya’s mouth fell open, while she was searching for words for it that might _possibly_ fit in this situation. 

Suddenly all the screams shouted a single word in her head. 

_No._

_No!_

_But I left the letter, and –_

She cut herself off. Time to wonder later. 

“Release him.” 

_Not him! Why he? Why? I told them it wasn’t his fault, I told them it was mine alone, I’m_ _the one who’s done all that, I’m the one who’s rode out on Nymeria to kill, not_ him _!_

Nothing happened, and Arya became desperate. 

Screams and shouts engulfed her head, of the people she’d killed, of the act that had made her a monster, or maybe a beast. She wasn’t sure. 

_But if I am a monster, at least let me use it to do him some good. He doesn’t deserve_ _what’s been done to him._

“ _Release him_ ”, she said again, her voice ice in a way her father’s had never been, with an underlying fury and madness. 

“Did any of you ever wonder where Lord Tywin’s army has gone?” – from their faces, it was clear that they hadn’t, though Arya didn’t really notice – “Well, you won’t find it, not anymore. You won’t find them because I just came back from a battlefield where I _butchered_ them, every single one, _all_ of them no matter age or sex or weapons. I could rip any one of you to pieces without lifting a finger” – and as if to emphasise her words, suddenly the howling of wolves came from the windows, while Arya saw with satisfaction the blank horror on the guard’s face – “No matter what you think he’s done, you will forget it, _now_ , and you _will RELEASE_ _HIM!_ ” 

With a look of terror the guard complied, his hands shuddering, even before Robb finally gave the command for him to do so. 

Shaking, Arya longed for breath, while slowly she realized what she’d done. Some part of her must’ve reached out to the wolves, to Nymeria. All this time she’d looked back over her shoulder, and never once had she realized that it wasn’t the field she was fearing to see, it was _them_ , the wolves, and her fear that she might go with them to continue what she’d already started. 

_Never again_ , she swore herself. Then she had one last look at Gendry, mouthed him a silent _sorry_ before she stormed out of the room, down the staircase and through the hall, never once looking round. Finally, when she reached her own chambers she bolted the door, then went into her sleeping-chamber, closed the door to _that_ , and then, when that one didn’t have a bolt, shoved her bed in front of it so it wouldn’t open. 

She wasn’t even sure if she was locking them all _out_ , or herself _in_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I've got over a hundred kudos on this one!
> 
> And at exactly the right time, too, because I think this story is coming to a close as well. Never fear, there will be another part (this is still part of a series, after all), but it feels to me that again a chapter is ending. Maybe there'll be a final Gendry chapter, or maybe I'll write an epilogue to this story as I did for the last one. I'm not sure yet.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Though it is by far longer than its two predecessors, it felt surprisingly short to me when I wrote it. In case you noticed a sudden shift in style, it's probably because over the weekend I read Douglas Adams's _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_ (fabulous book, by the way, even if its _Doctor Who_ heritage is at times very apparent). This is also the first chapter that I truly wrote over the course of a few days; for all the others I had drafts (most of them a year old) which I went over and over and over again until I felt they were good, or at least as good as I could make them. I had a draft for this one, too, but it was so horrible I decided to delete it entirely, and the only influence it had on this version is a little part of Arya's _Release Him! _-speech.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _Thoughts? Suggestions? Horrible errors to point out that I've managed to miss?_  
> 


	9. Epilogue

As he stepped through the portcullis Theon could feel the dead boy’s heads watching, even though he knew that by now they’d only empty sockets where their eyes had once been. The Crows and Ravens had seen to that. 

Slowly, he made his way into the Winter Town. Ser Rodrik was waiting for him at the market square, his gelding beside him. The boy Cley Cerwyn stood there, too, proudly displaying the banner with the direwolf of Stark flattering above him. And though they appeared to be alone, Theon knew that on the roofs of nearby houses and in hidden alleyways were scores of archers and footmen, just beyond his sight. 

“It grieves me that we must meet as foes, Ser Rodrik” 

“My own grief is that I must wait a while to hang you, Theon _Turncloak_.” He spat on the ground at that, hatred written clearly into his features. 

“I am a Greyjoy of Pyke”, Theon reminded him, “Heir to the Iron Islands.” 

“For ten years you have been a ward of Stark.” 

“Hostage and prisoner, I’d name it.” 

“Then perhaps Lord Eddard should have had you chained to a dungeon’s wall. Instead, he raised you alongside his own sons, with two of them being the poor boys you have butchered. It’ll be my own undying shame that I ever placed a sword in your hand, instead of one struck into your belly.” 

“I am not here to suffer your insults. Say what you will have of me.” 

“Only two things,” the old man said, “Winterfell, and your life. Command your men to open the gates and leave. All your men who had no part in the killing of Children may go in peace and make their own way to their homes. You yourself shall be held to await King Robb’s justice. May the Gods take pity on you when he returns.” 

“Robb will never return here again. His brave men will break themselves against Moat Cailin which my uncle holds, just as every southron army has ever done. The North is ours, now.” 

_I’m not stupid, Ser Rodrik. And I did listen to your lessons, and to those of Maester_ _Luwin._

“All that’s yours are three castle”, the man allowed, “and I mean to reduce that figure to two.” 

Ignoring him, Theon said, “Well then, here are _my_ terms. You have until the sun sets to disband your men. Explain to them that everyone who will be found in the vicinity of Winterfell after that time will be taken and executed as a traitor to the North.” 

Young Cerwyn’s face was the very image of someone being incredulous. “Are you mad, Turncloak?” 

But all Theon had to do in reply was to raise one hand, and watch the horror spread over both of their faces. Winterfell’s gate was right behind him, so he couldn’t see what was happening, but Cerwyn and Cassel could not fail to get a good look at the girl with the noose around her neck. 

“You’ve descended to _that?_ To use a child in such a way?” 

“Do not think that I am unfamiliar with it. I myself was taken as a boy of ten.” 

“It’s not the same!” 

“Maybe my noose wasn’t made of solid rope, but it chafed me all the worse for it.” 

He’d never really thought of it in this way, but as he spoke these words aloud, he knew that they were true. 

“No harm was ever done to you.” 

“And neither will any harm befall her, Ser Rodrik. Your armies will disperse before sunset. Remember that you have a duty to your own house as well, and apart from you Beth is its last of its blood.” 

“I give you the chance to die with even just a shred of honour, and you spit it back into my face.” His hand rested on his sword, now. “Truly, I should’ve known better than to deal with a child-killer.” 

Theon didn’t fear the old man. The archers on the roofs around him, though, they were a different matter … 

“Will you accept my terms?” 

A hesitation, then: “I’ve got a duty to my king.” 

“And to your own house as well”, Theon reminded him. “If just one of your men is still remaining here by nightfall she’ll hang. At dawn tomorrow, someone else will follow her, and after that at dusk as well, every day, until every last one of your men is gone.” 

Without waiting for any answer Theon wheeled his horse around and fled back into the safety of his castle’s walls. 

_Though it’s a shaky safety, at best._

Black Lorren was there when he rode into the yard and handed Smiler’s reins to Wax. “We’ll know by nightfall”, Theon told him. 

Though he gave a nod, he could see that the man’s eyes were full of contempt. He ignored him, and made his way inside the main keep. 

A fire had been laid in Ned Stark’s bedchamber. Theon sat beside it, a cup of heavy-bodied red from the castle vaults in hands. 

_It’s as sour as my mood._

At least he was still alive, he thought. If it had been his own father at the walls and him there in the noose, Winterfell wouldn’ve fallen already while he’d be lying dead in the mud, trampled by the other man. 

He thought he knew that Ser Rodrik would not attack, but … 

_He cannot attack, but neither can I follow up on my threat. If Beth dies, they’ll be over_ _the walls in little more than a minute._

There was little use in lying to himself there. The few men that had stayed with him until now might be brave and some of the best men that Pyke had had to offer – at least on that count Asha hadn’t taken everything away from him – but while they might take out twice or thrice their own number, eventually they’d be overwhelmed. 

And even the double walls of Winterfell would offer little protection without men to hold them. The stonework was old, and rough, more than apt for even a half-skilled climber, and without men on the battlements to hold them back … 

It truly was only that old fool’s fear for his girl’s life that kept them at bay for now. 

The cup of wine was only half-way gone when he called for Wex to fetch his bow, but it hadn’t brought him any solace anyways, so Theon left it there. 

The afternoon he spent in the yard, practising his archery, while slowly the shadows crept up to him as the sun sank in the sky. Winterfell had towers aplenty; now, they were like fingers and hands reaching out for him. 

Again and again Theon shot arrows hitting the mark, pretending not to care, pretending not to notice. 

But by the afternoon they’d got him. 

“If you had a hundred bowmen of your skill, you might still stand a chance, my lord Prince.” 

Theon turned to find Maester Luwin behind him, his face as kindly-looking as his voice. 

“Go away.” When the old man didn’t move, he added, “Or I’ll put the next one through your chest.” 

“No you won’t.” 

Theon gave him a startled look. 

“Shall we make that a wager?” 

“As Maester of the castle and your advisor, I wouldn’t recommend it, my lord prince. I am your only hope.” 

Clearly, the old fool didn’t understand the situation. 

“There’s no hope for me. My father’s given up on me even before I ever set foot on his islands, my sister has abandoned me first chance she got, not even that creature Reek I’d sent out has returned. I cannot win.” 

“You do not need to win this war.” Maester Luwin’s voice was soft, not in the way one would talk to a child, but in a way that just showed concern. Theon wasn’t sure if that was worse or not. 

“There is another option you might want to consider, my lord Prince.” 

“Yeah? And what would that be, then? To Kill myself and be done with it? You really should know me better than to suggest that.” 

“I do not wish for you to die, Theon. True, I will never love you, but you are still the boy I taught most of what he knows now. And in any event, as Maester I am sworn to this castle, not its lord, and I am sworn to give counsel. And right now I counsel you to take this: Do not attempt to win this fight, as you plainly cannot. Instead, take up the black. Ser Rodrik is as honourable as any man, and he will have to accept it, even if grudgingly so. And in the watch, any man can rise high, with all their previous deeds washed away forever.” 

_Taking the black_. Now there was an option that had never crossed his mind before. Not a month ago, he’d called the very idea of a Greyjoy joining the watch to be absurd, something that was reserved for bastards only, but now … _The watch_ _can’t be too bad, I suppose. Lord Stark’s own brother joined it, as did his bastard_ _son._

Turning it in its head, it seemingly became more and more attractive by the second. 

_My sins would be forgiven. Maybe I’d be stationed at Eastwatch, even, where_ _I could command my own ship. Yes_ , he thought, _let Asha keep her grubby wet_ _islands, I’ll be at Eastwatch, and away from these shitty islands I once had to call_ _home._

As for women … well, what wildling girl might not want to spend the night with a true prince from the south? 

But before he could reach a decision either way, a shout broke through his thoughts. 

“Prince Theon!”, Black Lorren’s voice boomed as he came running towards them. 

“Is it the northmen? Have they started their attack?” _By the Drowned God, but I thought_ _he had honour._

“No,” continued he, panting as he reached his prince, “but there have come forces to join them. Not too many, but if we didn’t stand a chance before, then I don’t know what we have now. There are no signs of preparing an attack, not as of yet, but they could do it any moment now, and we’d be too slow even to react to them.” 

“Any banners?” 

“A flayed man, Prince Theon.” 

_So the Boltons have come to join them, too._ Well, it mattered but little to him, whether Cassel had a thousand or two thousand men to command. There was still Beth at the gate, holding them at bay … 

_Maybe,_ Theon thought, _the sight of the boy’s head will be proof enough for them_ _that I do not make idle threats. Maybe I should have had Mikken’s head there,_ _too._

The dead Blacksmith’s large head would surely have made an impressive sight … 

But again he was ripped from his thoughts, this time by horns and the alarm. 

Shouts drifted into the yards from outside, and soon everyone could sense a battle going its way beyond the walls, while what few men remained to him rushed up to the battlements, bows and axes in hand. 

“ _Hang the girl!_ ”, Theon tried to shout over the noise and confusion, though to little avail, but at last he saw that Beth Cassel was already dangling at the rope as surely as he himself had done so many years. _Someone_ must’ve decided to do as he’d been told, at least. 

But it didn’t take long until someone else cut the rope – _traitors!_ , Theon thought – even before the walls itself were stormed, and stormed they were. The massive double walls might be difficult and risky to climb if in a hurry, but they did it readily enough, and soon the battlements were swarming with men. 

Arrows hailed on them, but not nearly enough to make a difference; He himself took out several of them – he did not know their exact number, nor did would he ever care to learn it – if there had been boiling oil or water to pour down on them … 

_No use thinking of might’ve beens_ , he told himself, as the northmen came closer, screaming in their rage. 

Finally men came from the sides; they must’ve climbed up on some other part of the wall he hadn’t had the men to guard. 

Theon cursed himself for having no sword readily it hand; he’d left it with Wex before, when he’d started practising with the bow. So the cuts came to no surprise for him, nor the blood flowing down his face and covering his eyes. 

Thunder and shouts sounded around him, as Theon Greyjoy prepared to draw his last breath. Falling, he thought he could see an old man – Ser Rodrik? Lord Stark? His own father? – storming through the yard, shouting in anguish, while a figure like a demon stared at him from above … 

With a _Splat_ on the muddy ground, Theon Greyjoy was dead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay.
> 
> This one toook longer than I expected. For one, it's the last chapter of this part of the story, which is always hard to write, especially when there's so little connection to the rest of the main story. Also, I've never written a Theon POV before, and I had to reread a lot of his chapters in the books to even remember what they're like. Boy, but did Ao3 do its work there; I hadn't remembered him as being quite so aweful.
> 
> Also, I've been sketching out the next part of this series. There are still some open questions and inconsistencies in it though; it might take one or two weeks till I really get it going to the point that I can publish the first chapter.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this one.
> 
> Thoughts? Suggestions?


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